Harry Potter and the Voice Within the Walls
by ravenhaired88
Summary: AU. Harry is blinded in an accident at a young age and then disappears from the watchful eye of the Order. What happens when he reappears in the wizarding world? What dangers will he face? No horcruxes and Voldemort is dead. Warnings for some descriptions of child abuse and the aftereffects, nothing too violent. Rating may be a little higher than necessary.
1. Chapter 1: The Accident

Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter books, movies, world, characters, or anything else. They all belong to JK Rowling and Warner Bros.

_**Prologue**_

_Present Day_

Severus Snape strode through the filthy streets of this forgotten section of London. He was searching, seeking out a young boy whose Hogwarts letter had been addressed to an alley right near here. Nobody had noticed the name or the address until a response had been sent back with the school owl. The note had been written on the back of the letter in a blocky, childish scrawl, drawn in what looked like charcoal. It read:

I.m sorry I don.t know anything about Hogwarts. Please explain.

So Severus had been sent to explain. As he approached the mouth of the alley, he considered what he might find. Would the child starving, injured, sick? Would he be suspicious and defiant, or practically feral from surviving on his own? Would he be unwilling to come with a strange man to magical world he had never known existed?

He rounded the corner, slipping into the narrow space between the neglected buildings on either side, and spotted a small waif of a boy. He was perched on a cracked crate, squatting next to a bent drainpipe that stretched up to the roof of the building behind him. His dark hair tickled his nose in front and brushed the base of his neck in the back, and it looked tangled and snarled where it poked out from beneath a battered baseball cap. He held a long, unnaturally straight stick between his crouched legs so that its tip rested on the ground. The boy's skin and the odd stick were both so muddy that it was difficult to tell their original color.

"Harry… Harry Potter?" Severus called out. The boy's head snapped up, his hair falling into his eyes. He jumped down from the crate and took a couple of steps forward, the stick held in his right hand at an angle in front of him. Then he brushed the hair out of his eyes and switched the stick to his left hand, holding his right out in front of him to shake Severus.'

"I'm Harry Potter," he said.

Severus stepped forward to shake his hand, and then nearly gasped as he caught sight of the child's eyes. They were reminiscent of Lily's eyes, but that was not what made him so nearly lose his composure. Where Lily's eyes had been a bright and clear green, Harry's were clouded and hazy. Snape took in the long stick, the foggy eyes, the oddly staring look, and realized…

Harry Potter was blind.

All of this Severus processed in the amount of time it took him to take a single step. He drew his spiralling thoughts together quickly and grasped Harry's hand, giving it a firm shake.

"Hello, Mr. Potter. I am Professor Snape. I am here to take you to Hogwarts."

_**Chapter One: The Accident**_

_3 Years Previously_

*"Up! Get up now!"*

Harry was woken by this brisk command, punctuated by two sharp raps on the grate of his cupboard door. He groaned quietly but was up quickly, padding into the kitchen and receiving a cuff to the head from his Aunt Petunia for not moving swiftly enough. He busied himself with making the eggs and bacon, dragging a little stool around with him to reach onto the counters and stove. He tossed several strips of bacon into one pan, then cracked the eggs into another and began scrambling them under the watchful eye of his aunt. Just then, the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia left to answer it in the living room.

When the bacon was nearly done and Harry was beginning to pour the eggs into a serving dish, Uncle Vernon lumbered into the room and sat with the paper open in front of him, followed closely by Dudley. Aunt Petunia re-entered the room as Harry turned off the stove.

*"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg just rang. She's taken ill, can't take him today." She jerked her chin in Harry's direction.*

Vernon's face purpled. "We can't take him with us to the cinema! Think of the -"

"I know, Vernon," Aunt Petunia snapped. "I wasn't suggesting we do, we'll have to come up with something else." She began scraping the eggs and bacon onto four plates with rough movements, placing hearty helpings in front of Vernon, Dudley, and herself and one meager portion on the corner of the table near where Harry stood on his stool as he wiped down the counter.

"What about your sister Marge?" she suggested as she sat down.

*"Don't be ridiculous, she hates the boy,"* Uncle Vernon mumbled through a mouthful of food.

Dudley was following his parents' discussion like a tennis match, his gaze shifting between the two while he began shoveling food into his mouth, his brow furrowed in consternation. Harry, meanwhile, was torn between excitement and trepidation. On the one hand, he hated it at Mrs. Figg's house. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned. On the other hand, the as-yet unknown alternative could be worse.

Uncle Vernon frowned. "I suppose we could leave the boy here… We could lock the door and draw the shades…"

"And have him blow up the house?" Aunt Petunia returned. "I shudder to think what could happen to my new carpet." She glared at Harry as he took a seat in front of his plate, and he tried to make himself look small in the chair, a feat which was aided by his diminutive size.

Aunt Petunia continued, "We could just leave him in the car. We'll have to leave a window cracked though, it's nearly July."

"That's a brand new company car, I'll not have him soil it!" Uncle Vernon retorted angrily. His face wrinkled further as he considered, then he heaved a sigh. "I suppose he'll just have to come, he's still just seven we might be able to get the little kids' price for him."

Harry tried very hard to keep his growing anticipation from his face. He was (hopefully) going to the cinemas! He had never been before, the Dursleys never took him on any of their outings. He had never even seen a full movie before; whenever Aunt Petunia noticed him paying attention to whatever Dudley or the family was watching on the telly she quickly gave him another chore to do or sent him to his cupboard.

Dudley, however, provided an excellent distraction from Harry's only semi-hidden joy as just then he burst out wailing over the idea of Harry coming with them, and his mother rushed over to soothe him.

"I - DON'T - WANT - HIM - TO - COME!" he screeched as he heaved great shuddering gasps of air. "HE - RUINS - EVERYTHING! I WANT - MY DAY - WITH MUMMY AND DADDY!"

However, in the end, there were no suitable alternatives, and so Harry found himself, for the first time in his life, awaiting with great anticipation an excursion with the Dursleys. His high spirits could not even be dampened by the long wait through the morning in his dark, locked cupboard, into which he had been tossed after breakfast (as a futile attempt at balancing out the excitement of the forthcoming afternoon, or as a punishment for not being easily dumped on someone else, Harry was not sure). He sat gazing at a small, crinkled picture of his mother which he had found and secreted away to his cupboard just last month when Aunt Petunia had ordered him to clean out the attic. His mother could not have been older than 10 in the photograph, and was smiling at the camera with one arm raised as though resting on someone else's shoulders. Harry had deduced that it was his mother from the caption on the back, which read: "Petunia Evans with Lily Evans, 5 July, 19-." The rest of the date had been cut off, presumably when Aunt Petunia cut her sister out of the picture. Harry had taken to holding this picture up to the light that filtered in through the grate in the cupboard door and talking softly to his mother when the Dursleys were far enough away that they would not hear.

"I'm going to the cinema for the first time today, Mum," he whispered to her softly. "Do you think I'll get any popcorn? I'd like to try some popcorn." Harry grinned at the picture, then tucked it hastily back away as someone approached the cupboard and unbolted the lock.

He followed the Dursleys outside to the driveway, but before he could climb into the car behind Dudley, Uncle Vernon pulled him aside and warned him in a low, threatening whisper, *"No funny business, you hear me boy? _Anything_ out of the ordinary, anything _freakish_, and you'll be locked in your cupboard for a month!"*

Harry quickly stammered assurances and clambered into the backseat under his uncle's baleful glare, but inwardly he was seething. He never _made_ anything happen, weird things just seemed to happen around him! Like the time Dudley and his game were chasing him outside of the schoolhouse and he suddenly found himself on the roof with no idea how he had arrived there. The Dursleys were called and the school accused Harry of recklessly climbing on school buildings. He was quite hungry by the time the Dursleys let him out of the cupboard after that. A different time, he was being chased by Aunt Marge's snarling bulldog, Ripper, when suddenly it was whining as if its mouth had been mysteriously glued shut. Aunt Marge assumed the dog must have found some peanut butter somewhere, but the Dursleys were not so easily assured and were quick to blame Harry once Marge was on her way home.

But Harry was determined that this time nothing strange or unexplainable would happen. He would have a good time at the cinema and maybe the Dursleys would see he could be taken places. 'I'm not _too_ much of a freak,' he thought to himself.

xxXxx

It was on the way home, while Harry was trying to ignore Dudley's poking, that it happened.

One minute they were driving down a dark highway, the next Harry's world was spinning and then it was black. When he came to, the car was tilted in a ditch and Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were helping Dudley out of the backseat.

He moved to follow them, noting that aside from some bruising where he had flown into his seatbelt he seemed to be unharmed. But when he tried to release his seatbelt, it refused to cooperate, clearly jammed somewhere in the mechanism. He jiggled it, then looked around for his relatives, fear beginning to creep into his mind.

"Aunt Petunia, help please, I'm stuck," he called, trying to keep his voice polite and without any hint of panic.

His aunt looked back from where she was scrambling out of the ditch with her husband and son. An unrecognizable emotion flickered across her face and she began to turn around, then her eyes widened and her expression clouded with terror as she looked at something beyond Harry.

Harry turned and saw through the cracked windshield that smoke was beginning to rise from the hood. He began frantically wrestling with his seatbelt and turned pleading eyes to his aunt.

Aunt Petunia took two quick steps back down the embankment, determination on her face, then paused as fear overpowered the determination in her expression. She shook her head and sadly backed away, as Harry began struggling fiercely, even trying to wriggle under the belt. He looked up and his eyes widened when he saw flames, then as his vision filled with light, he felt a half-remembered twist in his gut and was suddenly out of the car. A sharp pain lanced across his hip as he registered the agonizing burning that was in his eyes, then his head struck asphalt and he knew no more.

xxXxx

The next several days were a haze of pain and confusing conversations as Harry drifted in and out of consciousness. He was disoriented the first few times he woke by the darkness surrounding him, but soon learned of the bandages on his eyes, as well as those swathing his head, right hip, and right forearm. He thought he heard the voice of his Aunt Petunia out in the hallway at one point, though he was never sure, yet as far as he knew the Dursleys never came in to speak with him. A few days after he thought he heard his aunt's voice, one doctor took pity on him and explained about the damage to his eyes that might improve (he later learned that surgery would likely have corrected the retinal damage at least somewhat, but that the Dursleys would have had to agree to this surgery), and the damage to the vision centers at the back of his brain that would almost certainly be permanent. She explained that, similar to his hip, the only way to determine how much recovery of function he would achieve would be to wait and work at it.

Harry did not have much time to truly consider what this meant for his future while in the hospital. At first the pain distracted him, then as that faded somewhat he grew worried that he had not yet heard from the Dursleys. As the days stretched on and his injuries healed, he stopped expecting the Dursleys to return for him and began worrying about where he would go next. Where did they send boys like him - blind freaks with no family?

When his bandages were finally removed, Harry was able to take better stock of the full extent of his injuries. He discovered, with the nurses' help, that he had some amount of residual vision. He could distinguish whether the room was light or dark, and recognize some amount of movement, though he could not tell where the movement occurred or what was moving. He explored with his fingertips the uneven skin on the forearm of his right arm and right thigh, the ropy scar that extended horizontally from the front to the back of that same thigh, just a bit below his hip bone, and discovered just how painfully stiff his hip was when he attempted to walk on it later on. The nurses also informed him of the faint white scars speckled just around his eyes, and he pictured them accompanying the zig-zagging scar on his forehead, which he had sported for as long as he could remember, in decorating his face like a starry night sky lit up by lightning. While the nurses and occupational and physical therapists began working with him on regaining mobility in his right leg and re-learning some basic tasks, the thoughts that consumed him were where he would be sent next, and how much his future guardians would hate him if he were forced upon them.

His mood was improved a little when he learned that a bundle of his belongings had arrived one afternoon during the second week of his stay. He learned it contained three pairs of pants, one pair of shorts, a few t-shirts, a sweatshirt, and a battered blue baseball cap with the Chelsea FC logo on it (all the old clothing of Dudley's that the Dursleys had bequeathed to him), as well as the photograph of his mother. Harry was never sure whether the picture had gone unnoticed when his belongings were gathered, or whether it had been left for him by Aunt Petunia out of some vague feelings of guilt. He was, however, heartened to know he still had it even if he could no longer see it, and he began holding it in his hands every night as he fell asleep, smoothing out the crinkles over and over again and conducting imaginary conversations with his mother in his head.

xxXxx

"Albus! Albus Dumbledore! I need to speak with you at once! It's about Harry!"

The man in question strode into the room where a green fire was crackling, his burgundy robes streaming out behind him and his long gray beard puffing up towards one shoulder, and addressed the disembodied head resting among the coals.

"Yes, Arabella? Is something wrong? Step through, please," he directed her patiently, leveling his full attention onto the distressed woman. "And do remember to start at the beginning." His eyes twinkled a bit at this admonishment, though his expression remained serious.

"The Dursleys just returned from some vacation or other early last week," Arabella began quickly as she emerged from the fireplace, "I hadn't seen young Harry around since then, but I assumed he'd taken ill and was being kept inside. He does seem to disappear indoors like that at times, you know. Anyways, but now I'm hearing rumors that the Dursleys' nephew is dead! Died in some accident! I don't know if they're true, but Albus, what could have happened?" The old woman's voice had risen as she finished her hastily-spoken speech, and now she collapsed into a chair and began wringing her hands.

Albus' expression darkened as he considered her words. "This is grave indeed. If Harry is alive, he must be found." He straightened grimly and withdrew a pinch of powder from a box on the mantel, stating, "We will have to act quickly and quietly to keep this from the Ministry's notice; we would not want Harry to fall into the hands of someone like Lucius Malfoy." He tossed the powder into the flames, striding forward and calling out "Severus Snape's quarters!" as the flames turned green and swallowed him.

A/N: I pulled some snippets from the second chapter of the first Harry Potter book. Those sections with asterisks (*) around them are either pulled directly from Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone, or are paraphrased (most of them are paraphrased). No copyright infringement intended. Please don't shoot me.

Also, I want to give a shout-out to Taylor1991, BrailleErin, xyvortex, The Lilac Elf of Lothlorien, lastcrazyhorn, and AllisonMadness. The stories of many of these authors were part of the inspiration for me writing this story.


	2. Chapter 2: St Jerome Emiliani's Home

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the Harry Potter books and characters. Not me.

Chapter 2: St. Jerome Emiliani's Home for Children

Harry ended up staying in the hospital longer than was strictly necessary to heal. The nurses kept talking about finding the perfect place for him to stay, but Harry understood that they would have difficulty finding someone willing to take in someone like him. He later learned that the Dursleys had claimed they did not have the resources necessary to raise a 'special-needs' child, and that as much as it pained them to give up their beloved nephew, he would be better off with someone else. But Harry was not naive. The Dursleys had never hesitated before the accident to show him just how badly a freak like him intruded on their oh-so-normal life. And now that he was a blind freak…? That would be unbearable. No, he had not truly expected the Dursleys to take him back, not now. And as frightened as he was of where he would go, he stiffened his resolve not to be a worthless, freaky burden on his next guardians.

However, when he was released from the hospital, finally, he was not taken to a new foster family, but instead to what the social workers called a 'group home,' which Harry thought seemed a bit like a modern way of dressing up the term 'orphanage' to sound slightly less archaic. He was told it was just temporary, and he would be out of there and with his new family in no time, just a few weeks at the most. But a few weeks stretched out into six long months of waiting for someone to be willing to foster him.

The group home, the official name of which was St. Jerome Emiliani's Home for Children, housed an interesting mixture of children. They were all there temporarily, some waiting to be placed with a new foster family if they had to leave a previous family unexpectedly, others waiting for the courts to decide whether they would return to their own parents or be put into the system, and still others, as in Harry's case, waiting for someone to be equipped and willing to care for them. Consequently, the children ranged from infants whose parents were suspected of negligence in their drug-addled haze, to skittish youngsters who shied away from raised voices and open palms, to teenaged juvenile delinquents who snuck out at night to drink in the park.

All of them who were old enough to sleep in a bed were bunked upstairs in two rooms, one for girls and one for boys, with the crib room and their caretakers' rooms across the hall. Between the boys and girls dormitories were the boys and girls showers and bathrooms, with doors leading from their respective dormitories. The stairs to the lower floor were at the end of the hallway closer to the girls dormitory and the caretakers' rooms, and they led to the downstairs foyer. If one walked down these stairs from the upper floor, they would see the front door directly in front of them, the door to the mess hall to their right, and three doors to their left, leading to two small classrooms and one small rec room which was situated closest to the front door.

For the first couple of days that Harry was there he was mostly left to his own devices, and so he slowly explored his new home with his feet and hands. While he discovered that it was quite nerve-racking to set each foot into the unknown, the weeks of staying in his hospital room, except when he was led to the bathroom by nurses, had left him chafing for freedom. He learned, after nearly tumbling down the stairs, to pause briefly to explore with his toe before shifting his weight to that foot as he walked. Since his right hip was still rather weak, he ended up using an odd, somewhat shuffling gait, stretching out his right toe to explore then limping forward without quite putting his full weight on his right leg. After bumping his head a couple of times while trying to explore behind the staircase, he learned to hold one hand above his head and one hand out in front of him or trailing along the wall.

He tried both mornings to discern his various mismatched articles of clothing from one another by feeling them, smelling them, and eventually squinting hard at them in his first frustrated and fruitless attempt since the accident to see some color or outline. After these efforts told him nothing more than the fabric and size of the article, along with whether they were a bottom or a top, he eventually gave up on trying to match them, and for once was grateful that most of his somewhat ratty clothes were varying shades of faded gray, their colors having been stripped by many wash cycles. On the second day, he did begin wearing the cap with the brim pulled down low on his forehead in an effort to somewhat protect his head from low-hanging obstacles.

On his third morning at St. Jerome's, he was at the bottom of the stairs when he heard a voice he recognized as one of the caretaker's, though he could not remember which one, calling his name from near the front door.

"Oh, there he is now! Harry - Harry Potter! Come over here, I have someone for you to meet," she called out briskly.

Harry began limping towards her, trailing his right hand along the wall and using his toe to search for forgotten toys on the floor. About halfway there he was nearly bowled over as two boys shoved roughly past him.

"No football in the halls! Take that outside!" the caretaker called out gruffly. Then as Harry reached her she said a bit more kindly, "Harry, this is Ms. Syracuse, she's going to be teaching you a few things while you stay here, and possibly even after we find you a more permanent home. I've got to run, are you all set with him? You can use one of those classrooms over there if you'd like." Harry assumed the last was addressed to Ms. Syracuse.

"Yes, we'll be just fine. Thank you. Hi Harry, you can call me Lucy. Can I take your hand?"

Harry nodded, though he was still somewhat uncertain about what exactly was happening, and raised his hand towards the direction of her voice. He felt her take it and then she led him towards one of the classrooms, saying, "We'll just go in here while I explain how this will work, and then we'll walk around for a bit. Does that sound good?"

Harry nodded again, knowing better than to disagree with or to ask questions of an adult, particularly an unknown one.

xxXxx

Albus Dumbledore stood in his office, facing the unlit fireplace. Just to his right and behind him, an old, straight-backed woman with gray hair pulled into a severe bun stood addressing him. In the shadows to Dumbledore's left hovered a tall man dressed all in black with dark, intense eyes and somewhat greasy black hair that hung in curtains to his shoulders, somewhat obscuring his hooked nose and sallow complexion.

"... have combed the city thoroughly with no sign of him," the woman was saying. "But we can determine nothing conclusively. It seems unlikely that he is truly dead; we have found no evidence of any sort of funeral being held, and information on him would likely not be quite so closely guarded if he had passed. However, between using muggle methods to avoid alerting the Ministry to the situation, and needing to tread carefully when gathering information to avoid raising suspicion among the muggle authorities, it is practically a miracle we found the leads that we have, even if they did dry up." The woman finished with a huff, frowning as she linked her hands in front of her.

All three stood in silence for a moment, each appearing to be deep in thought. After a few minutes, the man dressed in black stepped forward and spoke.

"At this point, it appears most unlikely that the boy is in any immediate danger. And we unfortunately seem to have exhausted our current leads and resources. We cannot keep up this level of search without eventually alerting someone to our actions, no matter our methods. Besides, those who have been informed cannot continue to put their jobs and lives on hold, and we cannot afford to inform more people - former Order members or not, the more people who know the more likely it is that someone will eventually slip. I propose that we come up with a more long-term search plan, rotating search shifts and locations -"

"We cannot give up on finding him!" the woman interrupted, eyes flashing.

"We are _not_ giving up, we are merely altering our search plans to accommodate the changing situation," the dark man snapped back, glancing at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore sighed and turned to face them, seeming to age ten years as he did so. "Severus is correct, Minerva. We cannot keep up our current strategy. It is neither feasible nor wise. No, for now we must trust that wherever Harry Potter is, it is obscure enough to keep him hidden." He fingered the bridge of his nose absentmindedly in thought. "Besides, I do not expect any Death Eaters to make a move so soon after their lord's demise, they will likely at least wait until Harry is at school. They have nothing to gain from rushing and everything to gain from waiting, as the wizarding world's memories of those dark years continue to soften and fade." He looked into Severus' eyes as he made this last statement, appearing to be searching for something within their depths.

Minerva's lips tightened into a thin line, but she nodded her acquiescence, then spun and stalked towards the exit.

xxXxx

As it turned out, Lucy was a treasure trove of information on techniques and tricks Harry could use now that he could not see, which she began teaching him over the next few days. She gave him a long cane with a roller tip that she told him was bright white and showed him how to use it to find obstacles, to descend and ascend stairs, and other tricks, as well as how to fold it up so it was small and re-extend it when he needed it again. Harry marveled at how much more confident he felt walking with the cane sweeping the floor in front of him, and how much faster he could move with it than with his previous toe-tapping method, even if he was still limping a bit. She taught him how to hold onto her elbow and take verbal and nonverbal cues from her as they walked in an unfamiliar area. She began teaching him to read Braille, which he picked up remarkably quickly, and she assured him that soon he would not be too far behind his classmates since his age group had only begun reading recently anyway. She showed him how to keep his things neatly organized in the small trunk at the foot of his bed, and even how to label his clothes (though he wondered if he would ever own enough clothing to need to do so).

Once he worked up the courage to ask, Lucy also answered his questions on what would happen to him in the near future. Harry learned that he would start attending the local elementary school next week if he was not placed in a new home before then, and that the staff at St. Jerome's were looking for a family who would be capable enough to help him learn to live without sight. Harry thought they were probably just having a hard time finding someone _willing_ to deal with a child without sight, but he kept this thought private and pushed it to the back of his mind. He resolutely continued learning all of the techniques and strategies that Lucy could teach him over the next few months, determined to be independent in navigating the world, daily tasks, and even his school studies, which had indeed resumed the week after he arrived at St. Jerome's.

Over the next few weeks, Lucy also worked with Harry on using, and perhaps increasing, his residual vision. They were not very successful in improving his light perception; he remained only able to distinguish whether the area he was in was dark or lit, with no ability to recognize gradations. However, they were able to mildly improve his perception of movement. He could still only perceive larger, faster movements, such as if someone moved quickly across his field of vision, but he gradually was able to discern fairly consistently when the movement was in front of him or in his right or left peripheral. This became impossible for him, however, in a crowd (such as the hallways of his school), when it became just one mass of movement all around him.

Lucy also encouraged him to continue the exercises for his hip that he had been shown in the hospital. She said that although she was not an expert (and Harry thought he heard her mutter in a biting tone something about the government considering physical therapy _optional_), she thought that it would be wise to continue to work it. If he did not continue, the skin and soft tissue in the area would remain tight and stiff, and he may end up with a permanent limp and nagging soreness.

xxXxx

The vast majority of the children at St. Jerome's truly were there very temporarily, for no more than a week at most. However, there were a few children (whom Harry was among) who were slightly more difficult to place and sometimes stayed a bit longer, from a few weeks to a few months. These long-termers tended to be split into two groups: those who had particularly violent or extensive records, and those who had some sort of disability, usually intellectual or physical. In Harry's case, placing him was made more difficult, at least initially, because he was so newly blinded and had not yet learned and practiced many of the skills he would need to function. So while Harry waited, he became more accustomed to his blindness and was able to learn the necessary skills. However, he also ended up learning that children would always know just how freakish he was even if the adults appeared oblivious to his differences, and so he could never escape bullies for long.

For the first couple of weeks, the other children at the home mostly ignored Harry, as though they did not quite know what to do with him, which suited him just fine as he did not know what to do with them either. Any friends he might have made in school or in the neighborhood when he was with the Dursleys had been scared off by Dudley, and while Dudley had insisted on playing 'Harry Hunting' with him, he was not remotely disappointed to cease playing that particular sport.

However, such peace was not meant to last. Ricky came to St. Jerome's at the beginning of Harry's third week there. He was thirteen, and according to the other children's whispers, he already had a record a mile long. Though young, his voice was deep and somewhat gravelly - from smoking a pack a day, the children whispered - and his footfalls seemed to Harry like Godzilla tromping through the halls. Harry did his best to stay out of his way and remain unnoticed, but he knew he stuck out like a sore thumb even among the other long-termers, with his long white cane that he swept across the floor as he walked.

The teasing began slowly, almost harmlessly, as Ricky learned just how closely (or not closely) the caretakers watched the children. It started with him flicking the brim of Harry's cap up as he passed, frequently causing it to fall off. Harry would kneel down and sweep the floor with his hands in an effort to find it, his face burning with humiliation as Ricky guffawed with the posse he had quickly acquired. When no consequences came of these actions (Harry knew better than to go to an adult with his problems), the bullying increased. Seats were pulled out from underneath him when he would go to sit down in the rec room, feet would somehow get between himself and his cane and trip him, boys would snatch his cap from his head and hold it above him while they taunted him to reach for it, and shoving in the hallway far too frequently ended with him striking his tender right hip against the wall. Soon Harry's belongings began being moved, or his trunk reorganized, so that he woke up most mornings with something missing from where he had set it last. He found it incredibly frustrating to spend hours searching for something he knew he had left in its proper place, especially when it turned out to be just across the dormitory or in the wrong compartment of his trunk. Sometimes he would feel the stares of the other boys on him as he scrambled about on his hands and knees in their dormitory (a position which at times pained his hip), but he never expected that any of them would have the courage to stand up to Ricky and help him, and so he was never truly disappointed when they did not.

Harry finally tried going to one of the caretakers after waking one morning to find that his cane was missing from the nightstand where he always set it before bed. After searching the floor around the nightstand and underneath the surrounding beds, he finally sought out one of the caretakers for help so that he would not be late for school. When she found it in the nightstand drawer, she told him off for not looking after his things, despite his protestations that he always left his cane _atop_ the nightstand, and that someone must have moved it. Harry supposed that it was difficult to believe that an eight-year-old blind child was perfectly fastidious with his belongings, though he still fumed while he listened to her swiftly retreating footsteps. He learned to sleep lightly after that incident, with his cane and his mother's photograph clutched in his hands beneath his pillow. At the time, he did not think things could get much worse than losing his cane, his primary vessel of independence and self-sufficiency.

Harry learned how wrong he was when he returned to his bed one night to find his mother's photograph missing from his pillowcase. He searched his bed and his entire trunk, making a hopeless mess of his belongings in his panic, and the whole dormitory floor, before collapsing into his bed and falling asleep with silent tears leaking onto his cheeks. He moped about for the next several days, most of his mind fogged with grief, although one corner of his mind alternated between raging at himself for allowing someone such power over him and ranting at the injustice of it all. Harry was so miserable that he hardly even noticed Ricky's parting shot at him just before his tormentor left for his new foster home. As the bully gathered his belongings, which had scattered somewhat across the dormitory during the course of his three-month-long stay, he noted loudly to snickers from his audience that Harry had the dubious honor of being the current long_est_-termer, and that a family would even take him, with his criminal record, before they would take Harry.

After finding the photograph replaced the next night on top of his pillow, Harry bitterly wondered which one of Ricky's minions had enough pity for him to finally return the object that was obviously most precious to him. He never considered that perhaps someone (or even Ricky himself) might have had enough regret or even compassion to be moved to do so once Ricky's threats were null and void. Instead, he vowed to harden himself from then on so that he could not be so easily taken advantage of or controlled. He began carrying his mother's photograph on him at all times, tucked into the waistband of his pants where it could not be seen, and slept with his cane not only clutched in his hand but with the handle loop wrapped around his wrist for good measure. After weeks of searching amongst the odds and ends that had gathered over the years in St. Jerome's corners and storage closets, he found a serviceable lock with its key still inside. He attached the lock to his trunk and took to wearing the key on a piece of cord around his neck and tucked into his shirt. His expression turned flinty and his staring, clouded green eyes hardened, warning off the predators that would think him weak.

xxXxx

However, there was one thing that made some tiny part of him almost grateful for Ricky's never-ending taunting and pranks. He noticed at some point, over the course of weeks of what seemed like constant searching on his hands and knees, that he seemed to be able to feel the objects just beyond his hands in a vague sort of way. For example, he would sometimes know a couple of inches before his hand reached it that the foot of a bed was there. The ability was spotty, and even once he realized what he was doing, he was convinced at first that he must just subconsciously know the home better than he realized. It was not until he used this ability one time to avoid placing his hand on a little toy car (while searching the dormitory floor for his Braille primer) that he finally became convinced that he was actually feeling things before he physically touched them.

Harry likened it in his mind to having small extensions of his arms. It was not like seeing as he could not discern colors or read printed words; it was more like his sense of touch had been given a slightly longer range. He learned to consciously use it, but reserved it for when he needed it after discovering that using it for more than a couple of minutes per day seemed to tire him greatly. He gradually refined it, first focusing on sharpening it so that he could distinguish finer and smaller textures, eventually succeeding in reading (for a brief period) while running his hands just above the pages of one of his Braille books. As he entered the fifth month of his stay at St. Jerome's, he began working on extending his ability beyond a couple of inches past his hands. It was slow, arduous work, but by the time the caretakers told him that they had found a foster family for him in mid-January, he had succeeded in sensing the rough outlines of objects about a foot around his whole body. Although this did not really give him any information that his white cane could not, he felt quite accomplished, especially when he remembered what it had felt like that morning three months ago when he had believed his cane was lost.

A/N: I am not exactly familiar with the legal system and such things, particularly in England. I am doing my best for it to be fairly realistic and within the realm of possibility, but not aiming for strict accuracy.

Also, please review! I would love to know what you all think!


	3. Chapter 3: Ada

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter and all of the affiliated characters. Not me.

Chapter 3: Ada

Harry finally made his first friend in early December. Though he did not know it at the time, it would only be a month and a half more before he would leave St. Jerome's for his new foster home.

Harry was sitting in the rec room before dinner one day, reading one of his school books, when someone sat down in the chair beside him. They did not greet him, and he returned the favor. Although the bullying of Harry had ceased once Ricky left a couple of weeks before, there seemed to be a barrier between him and the other children. Harry was not sure whether this had something to do with his blindness, or the residual fear of associating with him that Ricky had instilled, or something else entirely, but neither the other children nor Harry seemed able to breach it.

After about thirty minutes of sitting together in silence while Harry read his book, he began to smell what surely was dinner being served.

"What time is it?" Harry asked the other person. "Can you read the clock? Is it dinner time yet?"

Although Lucy had taught him about useful gadgets such as Braille watches, the government considered those to be _optional_ purchases (unlike his white cane) when it was their money being spent. Although it galled him to be reliant on someone else, he swallowed his pride and usually resorted to asking whoever was around what time it was.

Harry frowned as the person beside him seemed to fidget and rustle around for a minute, then got up and walked away. He was confused by the encounter, but pushed it to the back of his mind and instead stood up to go see whether the children were lining up by the mess hall yet.

At dinner that night, he heard the children talking about one of the newcomers, a seven-year-old girl named Ada. They said that she had come with trunks full of clothing and toys, and that all the girls had heard her sobbing herself to sleep the night before. But the children seemed to find it especially juicy that she was deaf and spoke only sign language. They discussed this without bothering to whisper, speculating on what had brought her here and how long she would stay.

Harry, suspecting that she might have been the silent stranger from earlier, wondered if he could figure out a way to talk to her. He thought that perhaps he would run into her again, but soon learned that it was harder than he had anticipated to identify a girl who never spoke. Since none of the other children ever voluntarily spoke to him anyway, she blended into the masses at St. Jerome's.

Several days later, Harry was stretched out in a drooping armchair in the rec room, listening to a couple of the toddlers playing in the corner and fingering the burn scar on his forearm, an idle habit he had developed. He heard quick, quiet steps pad up to him and then someone grabbed his right hand.

Startled, he snatched it back and barked out, "What? What do you want?" When he received no response, he frowned in consternation, then his eyes widened as comprehension dawned on him.

Tentatively, he stretched out his hand and someone's trembling fingers grasped it, then he felt a finger swiping lines across his palm. He frowned, not understanding, and they repeated the gesture. After a few tries, he realized she was drawing letters on his palm, and after the seventh try he finally understood her strokes:

"A - D - A"

Grinning, he nodded, pointed to her with his free hand and repeated, "Ada."

He heard her let out a little huff of pleasure, then Harry took the hand that had been tracing into his palm and held it in his left hand. He wrote into her palm with his right index, "H - A - R - R - Y," and pointed to himself with the same finger. Then he spelled out, "N - I - C - E - T - O - M - E - E - T - Y - O - U," and held out his right hand palm-up as he dropped hers, trying to signal that it was her turn.

She seemed to hesitate, then he heard her quiet footsteps head towards the door and out into the hall. Confused, he knit his brows together as he considered. Did she mean him to follow her? Or was that all, was she bored of attempting to bridge their communication barrier? Then he heard her re-enter the room and drag over the little table from the corner towards him. She settled herself in the folding chair to his right and grasped his hand again, brushing more letters into his palm. It took him a few tries to understand all of her letters and arrange them into sensible words, but he eventually read, "Too slow for you."

Harry frowned, not comprehending her meaning, but then Ada shoved a pen into his right hand and placed his left onto the little table where a piece of paper rested. His frown deepened, but he wrote out, "You want me to write instead?" He tried to keep the letters legible by tracing his place with his left finger as he wrote, but he was not sure how it turned out.

Ada grasped his hand again and pumped it up and down in what he assumed was a signal for "yes," then she spelled out, "Faster." Harry was not certain he agreed that it was faster, but did not argue the point.

They conversed for a while longer, though it was slow going. Harry could tell that Ada got frustrated at times by his slowness in understanding her tracings, especially as she tried to spell out longer sentences into his palm, but by dinner time they had settled into the beginnings of a rhythm. They walked to dinner together and sat together as they ate, and some of the other children noted that a small smile lingered on Harry's face at first, though it did not take long to settle back into his usual stony expression.

xxXxx

Over the next few weeks, Ada and Harry became fast friends. Ada would often find Harry while he was sitting or reading in the rec room, and Harry would sometimes seek out Ada's quiet, padding footsteps in the hallways of St. Jerome's. They used a rock as a paperweight for Harry, and he learned to hold his left thumb at the beginning of the line he was writing and follow its course with his left index finger as he wrote. Although he was sure his writing was nowhere near neat, this did help with its legibility. Ada would trace letters into Harry's palm, and her frustration faded as Harry's ability to understand improved, especially as they came up with some shortcuts for common words or phrases. She also taught him some simple signs and gestures which he would read by cupping his hands around hers as she signed, following her movements. He occasionally tried to return some of these signs to her, but she often laughed at his clumsy attempts and so he did not do so often.

Harry learned that Ada's parents had been Deaf, but that they had both died in a car accident. She was an only child, and they spoke only BSL at home. She had no relatives able to care for her, so she had been placed (temporarily of course) at St. Jerome's while they tried to find a foster family that knew BSL, or at least were willing to deal with such a huge communication barrier. Ada told him of her fears of living with people who did not speak her language, people who may force her to stop signing, and her fear of going to a mainstream school away from all of her friends.

In return, Harry told her that his parents had died in a car accident when he was just a baby, which was where he had received his lightning scar, and that he had lost his sight in another accident just a few months ago. He mentioned once that he was afraid no family would ever want him because he was a freak, but she grew quite angry at his usage of the word 'freak,' so he never broached the subject again.

Although he considered it, he never told her about his extended tactile senses. He was continuing to work on strengthening his mysterious ability, but he was afraid to tell anyone. He knew it was not a normal ability, and whenever he thought of telling Ada about it, the voices of the Dursleys calling him 'freak' seemed to echo in his head. Some part of Harry was afraid that telling Ada about his strange ability would change her mind about him, and show her just how appropriate the word 'freak' could be at times.

Ada and Harry also helped each other around the home. Ada helped Harry in his long search for a lock with a key, and Harry attempted to shield Ada from the taunting and teasing she was beginning to attract. Even with the vast majority of the children at the home staying for such brief periods, they still managed to form cliques, and they still managed to choose targets, and Ada somehow became a universal target.

Harry first noticed this when, while walking down the hallway with Ada, he heard odd flapping, clapping, and squawking noises coming from the group of older girls who were passing them. He tried to ask Ada what was going on, spinning his raised finger around in a small circle as Ada had taught him, but she ignored him, belying her usual chatty nature.

After that incident, Harry began to notice that the other children frequently made similar noises whenever they spotted Ada. He heard rumors of fights breaking out in the girls dormitory over Ada's many toys and clothing, and heard girls scathingly ask her in the hallways, "When's Daddy picking up his little girl? Did he forget to come back?"

One day as Harry and Ada sat in their usual chairs in the rec room, a nine-year-old girl who had only been at St. Jerome's for a couple of days came over with a group of her giggling friends and snatched something away from Ada, causing Ada to gasp in surprise.

"Why do _you_ get so many pretty dolls?" the new girl asked bitingly. "What makes _you_ more special than _us_?"

Harry stood up and faced her. "Give it back," he ordered quietly.

The girl seemed to consider him for a moment, then asked, "And who's gonna make me? You?"

He gritted his teeth, then answered, "Maybe."

The girls all broke into laughter, then the ringleader said, "And what will you do about it, huh?" For a moment, no one moved or said anything, then she finished, "Nothing."

Harry slouched back into his seat as he heard the chattering girls leave, gloating over their victory. Ada tried to regain his attention, but he was wrapped up in his own swirling thoughts. He had vowed not to give anyone control, he had promised himself not to let them win! At some point along the way, he had decided to protect Ada, though he had not realized it until just now.

He went to bed that night ashamed at his cowardice and insecurity, but resolved not to back down again.

xxXxx

A few days later as he left the boys dormitory, he heard Ada's familiar steps running down the hallway towards him and the sound of two older boys' laughter behind her. Planting his feet solidly and resting the tip of his cane on the ground between his feet so that it rose up vertically to his chest, he called out, "Why can't you guys all leave her alone? What did she ever do to you?"

Their laughter stopped and he heard them approach as Ada came to stand behind him.

"And I suppose _you're_ going to be her big protector," one of the boys taunted as they came to a stop in front of Harry. "C'mon, you didn't stand up to Millie, you won't stand up to me. You freakish long-termers are all the same: cowards and weirdos."

Harry's jaw clenched. "I'm warning you…"

The two of them guffawed, then the second boy spoke up, "Why should we be afraid of you anyway? What good is a blind kid in a fight?"

At this, cold anger flashed down Harry's spine, and he whipped his cane out, striking the legs of the boy on the right. He heard the other step towards him and before he could back up a punch landed on his cheek, whipping his head to the side. Harry just managed to strike out with the butt-end of his cane's grip, feeling it connect with flesh somewhere above him, before a foot swept his weak right leg out from underneath him. He stumbled backwards and to the ground. Dazed, he did not notice them approach him until he was picked up from the floor.

"This'll teach you…" one of them grunted, then swung the back of Harry's hand into the stone wall, hard.

Harry managed not to whimper as he was allowed to slide back to the floor.

xxXxx

As it turned out, Harry had given one of them a bloody nose and left a red welt across the other's legs. Harry himself was soon sporting a black eye and a very swollen right hand. Overall, Harry felt fairly good about his performance, considering that it had been two on one and the other boys were three years older than him. His only regret was that he had allowed his right hand to be injured. The small cast made it awkward and difficult for him to grip his cane, forcing him to hold it in his left hand and making navigation a more cumbersome experience for a couple of weeks while the small fracture healed.

All three of the boys were grounded for fighting, meaning they had to spend all of their free time confined to their dormitory. The caretakers apparently thought that being kept in the same room for hours at a time with little else to do would force them to reconcile, but the two boys just ignored Harry and Harry followed suit. Harry would not have minded the punishment so much except that it separated him from Ada, since girls were not allowed into the boys dormitory and vice versa. Although they sat together at mealtimes, it was difficult for them to converse while eating.

Then on his last day of the grounding, she did not sit with him at dinner. When, after much deliberation, he finally asked one of the caretakers if she was ok, they told him she was gone. Some family friends had been battling for custody of her and had finally succeeded in gaining it.

Harry was glad for Ada, that she was out of St. Jerome's, and that she was with a Deaf family that she knew, but now that he had learned what it meant to have a friend, his isolation felt all the more lonely. And so he closed off the piece of his heart that yearned for company, and tucked it away beneath growing layers of ice.

A/N: Reviews, please!


	4. Chapter 4: A Foster Home

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns the Harry Potter books and characters. Not me.

Chapter 4: A Foster Home

One day in the middle of January, just a couple of weeks after Ada left, it became Harry's turn to leave St. Jerome's. The whole thing seemed to happen surprisingly fast to Harry, leaving him feeling rather overwhelmed as he walked in the front door of Emily Price's flat.

Harry was gripping Emily's elbow as she brought him into the house. While Harry was grateful that someone had evidently at least shown her how to do sighted lead, he could also tell that it was an altogether novel experience for her, and she seemed unsure. This made Harry a bit nervous; how much would she really know about caring for a blind child? For that matter, what was she really like? She had seemed nice enough in their brief meeting at St. Jerome's, but the Dursleys had always seemed nicer in company than they actually were.

"Here's the living room, that's my boyfriend Chad on the couch over there." Chad have him a lazy 'hey,' and Harry gave him a tentative wave back. He felt a bit lost though - what couch over where? He imagined Chad was probably absorbed in the sports game he could hear playing on the TV. Emily led him deeper into the house as his mind churned, trying to take everything in. "The kitchen is straight ahead, and here's the hallway to our right." She led him down the hall and began pointing out what Harry assumed were closed doors (he could not feel the airflow he had begun associating with open doorways). "Here is the bathroom on our left, your room on our right, and my room is at the end of the hall."

Emily left him in his room to unpack, and he used his hands and his cane to explore it. The door was in the left corner of the room, and Harry began moving along the right hand wall first. He first found a desk and chair along the same wall as the door. He next encountered the bed, which stood in the corner diagonally opposite from the door, it's length stretching along the wall opposite from the hallway. A dresser stood across from the foot of the bed, and once he had completed his circuit, Harry set his small bundle down and began moving his clothes into the drawers. The photograph of his mother went under the pillow of his bed, and in the process of exploring along his bed he found that a small window was situated in the wall opposite the door, above the bed.

Feeling somewhat bored once he had unpacked his few belongings, Harry ventured out to the living room, taking his cane as the place was still unfamiliar to him. He had always carried his cane at St. Jerome's because the other children often left stray toys or other items on the lying around, but Lucy had told him that in a home that he was familiar with, he would be able to walk around without his cane, provided the other occupants kept items neat and organized, and Harry looked forward to this next level of freedom now that he was in a foster home.

He made his way forward, searching for the couch with his cane and wishing that Emily had been more specific in her descriptions and her tour. When he found the end of what he hoped was a couch, he sat with his cane resting between his legs, its tip touching the base of the coffee table he'd found in front of him. He could hear someone, he assumed Chad, sitting near where he believed the other end of the couch was (he had now confirmed its identity), and wondered idly where Emily had gone.

"Do you follow football at all?" Chad suddenly asked him, breaking their silence. "You a Chelsea fan?"

Harry fingered the battered brim of his hat. "I guess I'm a fan, I haven't had much opportunity to follow football though, no."

Harry heard a chink and the sound of air escaping, then caught a whiff of alcohol, and assumed Chad must have opened a beer.

"Man City is playing Arsenal right now. They look pretty good," Chad added.

Harry nodded, not sure what to say, but just then Emily entered the living room.

"Who wants some dinner?" she asked brightly.

A little while later, they all sat down at the small kitchen table. Harry felt awkward and annoyed when Emily tried to cut his food for him. She eventually stopped after Harry's adamant insistence that he could do it himself, and that if she would just tell him what she had placed where on his plate, he would be perfectly fine. Harry was beginning to feel a bit nervous about his living with Emily and Chad. Had no one told them anything about how to live with a person who was blind? Suddenly all the techniques Lucy had taught him seemed so inadequate, and it seemed so complicated to explain to his new caregivers what he needed from them and what he most definitely did _not_ need from them.

As it turned out, Harry's fears were only partially realized. After a few days of being occasionally over-helpful, Emily backed off and allowed Harry to do things himself. As Harry learned the layout of the apartment and started to leave his cane in his room, she began trying to leave doors either fully closed or fully open and chairs completely pushed in so that Harry would not run into them. She also promised that she would keep her belongings in their place so that he would not trip over them, and even told him she would organize certain sections of the fridge and cabinets with easy-to-make foods so that Harry could grab himself a snack when he wanted.

However, Chad either found these measures too annoying to follow, or he was incredibly forgetful and lazy. He too frequently left doors ajar, and he had a tendency to scatter his clothes so that they somehow reached the hallway. And Harry found himself putting his hand into spilled toothpaste that had been left on the bathroom counter at least once a week.

Still, Harry thought that overall his new living situation was not that bad. He found the flat incredibly quiet compared to St. Jerome's, even if Chad did seem to always have the TV on, and he very much enjoyed having his own space that he could retreat to. For the most part, Chad and Emily left him alone, aside from Emily's questions about school and Chad's one-sided football conversations, and Harry found that he quite liked it. The atmosphere felt so different from the Dursleys, where their ignoring of him had felt subtly hostile, as though he were a cockroach infestation they could not get rid of, and they had been quick to notice him when he did something freakish or messed up one of his many chores. At Emily's, he did not even really have any chores, except for helping with the washing up after dinner on occasion.

But in the spring of that year, Emily and Chad began fighting more and more often. Harry found himself frequently escaping to his room once they both were home from work in order to escape their shouting matches. Eventually, at the beginning of May, Chad moved out. Emily was mopey and despondent for a week or two, then seemed to throw herself into caring for Harry. She was nearly perfect about keeping everything clean and organized and keeping objects out of his way, and she constantly wanted to talk about how he was doing. At first, Harry found this disconcerting and rather annoying, but after about a month of living alone with her, he began to warm up to her, just a little.

Then in early June, she started seeing Jack. He became all she could talk about, and he was over nearly every night for dinner, leaving sometime after Harry went to bed. A few weeks later, he had moved in, and Harry's life changed once again.

Jack seemed to drink quite a bit more often than Chad (which, Harry thought, was saying something), and he was not as comfortable as Chad had been with just mostly ignoring Harry. He did not say much to Harry at first, but Harry would often feel his eyes on him when he was out in the living room. And, like Chad, Jack was 'between jobs,' so Harry spent most afternoons alone with him before Emily got home from her job.

Even worse, Jack made Chad look like a neat freak. Living with Jack caused Harry to suspect that Chad had actually been trying to keep things consistent for him and just slipped up sometimes. Jack left his things all over the place, not even seeming to try to keep his belongings contained to the bedroom he shared with Emily. Harry was constantly knocking over empty or half-full beer bottles which had been left forgotten on the coffee table or on the floor by the couch, and he broke a few unopened beer bottles that had encroached on the spaces in the fridge that were reserved for his organized snacks. If Emily was still at work when Harry broke a beer bottle in the fridge, Jack would yell at him, accusing him of being clumsy and disrespectful.

One afternoon, about a week after Jack had moved in, he was sitting on the couch and watching one of his cop shows when Harry emerged from his bedroom.

"Harry! Come sit over here with me," Jack called out to him. Confused and a bit wary, Harry walked over to him and sat next to him on the couch.

"Harry, I was wondering, don't all blind people wear sunglasses? How come you don't?" Jack questioned him once Harry was settled.

Harry's face colored. "Er, I don't know. I don't need to I guess. I don't have any sunglasses, anyway."

"Hm." Jack seemed to be thinking. He said nothing more, but Harry could feel his eyes on him again.

The next day, when Harry got home from school, Jack greeted him more cheerfully than usual, making Harry suspicious.

"Here," he said, and abruptly shoved a plastic object into Harry's hand. Annoyed, Harry traced the object with the fingertips of his other hand.

"Sunglasses?" he asked, frowning.

"Yeah, I thought you could wear them. Ya know, to cover up your eyes at least. It's a little disconcerting, the way they stare," Jack explained to him, completely oblivious to Harry's discomfiture.

Harry said nothing, just nodded vaguely and slipped the shades on, not wanting to disagree with an adult. Inwardly, however, he was angry, confused, and insecure. Jack thought _his_ staring eyes were uncomfortable! Did his eyes really look like that? They weren't that bad, were they?

"Would you like to watch some TV with me?" Jack asked, unaware of Harry's churning thoughts.

Harry shook his head no, not trusting his voice, and headed to his room, closing the door behind him.

That evening at dinner, Jack thoughtlessly slid the bowl of shredded parmesan cheese over to Harry too quietly, and without informing him he had done so. About a minute later, Harry put his elbow in it, upsetting the bowl and sending cheese all over the table. He began apologizing profusely while Emily set about cleaning everything up. Jack ignored Harry's words and started in on him, ranting about his carelessness. Even when Emily defended him, explaining to Jack that he needed to tell Harry when he moved something like that, Harry could feel the heat of Jack's angry stare on him for the rest of the night.

xxXxx

When Harry walked in the door the next day, Jack called from the couch, "Hey! Since you're up, can you grab me another Samuel Smith from the fridge?"

Assuming that a Samuel Smith was one of his beers, Harry complied, feeling around in the fridge until he felt one of the tall glass bottles and carrying it out to the living room. He held it out in the direction Jack's voice had come from, and felt him take it from his hands. Harry was just turning around when Jack began yelling at him.

"You idiot!" he raged. "This isn't a Samuel Smith, it's one of my Ola Dubh's! They're completely different!"

Unsure how he was supposed to be able to read the label and tell the difference, Harry just stood silently and waited out Jack's tirade, imagining that Jack was just looking for an excuse to vent about something. After several minutes of yelling, Jack finally sent Harry away, and he escaped to his room gladly.

This soon became a routine of sorts for the two of them. Jack would regularly request a specific beer from Harry, Harry would have about a one in two chance of picking out the correct one, and Jack would grudgingly accept correct ones or rant at him when he gave him the wrong one. Jack also started berating Harry whenever he would knock into or step on one of his many scattered belongings, particularly if he broke or spilled something. And when he left a chair out or a door ajar, he would chuckle when Harry walked into it, claiming that, "You have to learn to laugh at yourself!"

As an attempt at avoiding such situations, Harry began working at extending his tactile senses in earnest. He eventually increased his range so that he could sense vague outlines and grosser shapes at a five foot radius around him, and feel finer details at a similar range but in only one direction. Yet he still could not maintain it for long, and he worked furiously to increase his endurance.

Jack's behavior did not confuse Harry, exactly. It angered him, certainly, but he was not unused to unfair and mean-spirited treatment; he had lived with the Dursleys for six years, after all. What did confuse him was that Jack would suddenly become helpful and apologetic when Emily got home from work, and suggest activities in an attempt to buddy up with Harry. Emily strongly encouraged these 'bonding activities,' as she called them, and so Harry was forced to spend a couple of hours with Jack on most weekends. Usually, he would sit with Jack and his rowdy friends while they watched football, and try to avoid being squished or trod on when they jumped up and hugged each other in celebration of a goal. A few of times, he was brought to a game with the group, the first time being for his ninth birthday. He enjoyed this experience much more, except when Jack used Harry's blindness to somehow finagle closer seats or a better parking spot.

After Jack had taken Harry to a couple of games, he began insisting that Harry do some chores around the house, as a repayment of sorts for his kindness. He would ask for tasks such as vacuuming the carpet that stretched throughout most of the flat, or sweeping the kitchen floor, or cleaning the bathroom mirrors. For the most part, Harry did not really mind doing the chores. It was not nearly as many as the Dursleys had made him do.

However, there was one incident that seemed to step Jack's hatred of Harry up a notch. Harry had been doing the dishes, at Jack's request, when Jack added a stack of his own dishes to those in the sink, upsetting Harry's neatly organized piles. A wineglass tumbled down and shattered as Harry reached to catch it, slicing Harry's palm open. Instantly, Jack was at his side, cleaning up the glass and wrapping a towel around Harry's hand. Surprisingly, Harry got no rebuke from him, just a push towards his room, and the distinct impression that Jack was nervous.

When they sat down to dinner with Emily that night, she caught sight of Harry's hand, and Harry learned why Jack had seemed so nervous. After drawing the story out of them, she tore into Jack, furious with him for not properly tending to Harry's wound, and for letting him get hurt in the first place. Eventually, she piled Harry into the car and drove him to the emergency room, where he received several stitches.

After that, Jack's taunts became increasingly more venomous, and Harry thought his drinking might have increased. Eventually, Harry increased his endurance enough with his extended tactile senses that he could use it sparingly around the house, decreasing the number of opportunities for Jack to berate him. Unfortunately, Jack just found new ways. He began rebuking him for poorly-done chores, always finding a missed spot or two (likely imaginary, Harry thought). Harry protested at first, but when Jack threatened to hide him to teach him respect, asking how Harry could know if he could not see, Harry just accepted the verbal abuse. The threats continued for months, well into the winter, until Jack finally made good on his promise.

The first time it happened was a cool day in early March. Harry was carrying a cup of juice he had just poured for himself, concentrating hard on not spilling it. He was heading towards his room with his extra tactile sense closed, and did not notice Jack standing silently in the doorway. Jack did not move for Harry to pass, and Harry ran straight into him, spilling juice all over the both of them. Harry began to apologize, feeling around on the ground for the fallen cup, when a slap to his face nearly knocked him into the cabinet that was beside him. He paused in shock, and heard Jack's footsteps stomp back to the living room. Moving quickly, he gathered up the cup and cleaned the spilled juice before fleeing to his room.

Harry wondered whether the slap had left a mark; it felt like it must have, but Emily never commented on it. But from then on, it was as if the floodgates had been opened. Jack took every opportunity he had previously used just to yell at Harry to now slap him around, usually in areas that would be hidden by his clothes if they left bruises. Harry would promise himself that he would just strengthen his tactile senses, make them sharper and increase their reach and increase his endurance, and then Jack would have no reason to hit him anymore. But even as Harry's mistakes decreased, Jack seemed to create or invent excuses to teach Harry a lesson. Eventually, he began using the wooden spoon on Harry's back as he had once threatened he would, leaving raised welts, and on especially bad days he would even use his belt.

Not all of the marks that were left could be completely hidden, every so often a stray flick of the belt or a slap would land too close to his face or to his forearms, and Harry wondered that Emily never said anything. At first he decided that she, too, was afraid of Jack, but after some time he concluded that she must not care for him either.

Finally, in early October, just two months after he had turned ten, he ran away. He gathered a small bundle of a few of the clothing items Emily had bought him and a small bag of granola bars, trail mix, and yogurt from the cabinets. He placed these and some ibuprofen from the medicine cabinet into his school backpack, deciding with some sadness to leave all of his Braille books behind because of their weight. He tucked his mother's photograph deep into the pocket of his jeans, pulled on a hoodie over his t-shirt, tied his winter coat to one of the loops of his backpack, and laced up his sturdy boots. Then he jammed his cap onto his head, grabbed his cane, and fled into the wee hours of the morning, leaving his sunglasses lying broken on his dresser.

A/N: Reviews, please! Let me know what you think!


	5. Chapter 5: London

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns the Harry Potter books, character, world, etc.

Chapter 5: London

The first few weeks after running away were exhausting for Harry. He slept in a new box, or doorway, or on a new bench every night, hoping to find some undisturbed sleep, only to be awoken by an irate shopkeeper or the homeless person who usually slept in that spot. His supply of food ran out all too soon, and he had to learn quickly how to pick out the good food from dumpsters. This skill was surprisingly difficult to master; the smell of garbage seemed to permeate even the best foods and Harry could not distinguish whether items were discolored, or read expiration dates if the food was packaged. However, it took only a few episodes of sicking up his food for him to learn the feel and smell of bad food or mold, and to learn the beginnings of which moldy foods could simply have their mold scraped off and which needed to be avoided entirely.

Eventually, he stumbled across a narrow alley which, after spending a night there, he discovered was uninhabited. It was not wide enough for two grown men to stand across it shoulder-to-shoulder, and though it only had the one opening, Harry found a rather sturdy, slightly bent drainpipe at the end that he learned he could shimmy up with some effort to reach the roof of one of the buildings. He also discovered that his new alley, though itself in a seemingly run-down and forgotten area, was within a few blocks of several rather nice dumpsters.

It did not take him too long to realize he was dressed far too nicely to be living on the streets. He got into a couple of scuffles with local kids who apparently thought he would have money for them to take, and were not opposed to shoving a blind kid around. He apparently stood out as a target in his relatively clean and comparatively nice-looking clothes. So, somewhat reluctantly, he spent one evening rubbing enough dirt and grime into his clothes to hopefully allow him to blend in better. He was loathe to tear any holes in them, knowing he would need their warmth as the months grew colder.

He discovered quite by accident, however, that he appeared to have an advantage when it came to begging. He had been trying to find a nearby park he had overheard some kids mentioning, thinking he might find some good trashcans to pick through, or at least a good patch of grass for a soft nap. Being still relatively new to the area though, he lost his bearings during the course of his search. He was standing on a street corner, debating which direction to head, when he felt someone press something into his left hand. Startled, he nearly dropped it, but after a cursory exploration with his fingers he discovered it was a coin. Someone had clearly taken him, with his grubby clothes and his white cane, to be a beggar and had decided to practice some charity on him. After that incident, he took to carrying around a paper cup he had found, making sure his cane was clearly visible when he would stop to sit or stand at busy intersections or walkways. At first, he felt rather odd, embarrassed almost to be taking advantage of his blindness in such a way; he did not like people to treat him differently. However, the hunger that had gnawed at him since his second week on the streets, and the coldness that had begun to set in as the year drew towards its end, convinced him to take every advantage he could get.

He took to begging only in areas where he could hear an adult begging nearby, trying to avoid attracting too much attention from the authorities and being put back in the system. However, if he roamed too close to the other beggars, they would often chase him off to protect their own potential earnings. As much as he hated having to run from a populated street corner during prime hours, he also understood that him encroaching on their space was a real threat to them. His youth and blindness tended to elicit more pity and he likely drew much more money from the crowd than they would, leeching away some of the money they might have received otherwise.

Harry would occasionally take his earnings to one of the more rundown grocery stores to buy some food. Despite his ratty appearance, they did not often question him or toss him out of the store. There was even a clerk that, every once in a while, would help him find things, reading out labels to him so he did not have to rely on the combination of feeling and guessing he usually employed. This same clerk was also generally much more patient with his fumbling handling of money. Although he eventually learned to tell the coins and few bills he received apart by size and shape, it was a slow process since he had never had opportunity to handle money previously, and he had no one to read off the values so he could match them to their feel.

Although Harry found that the world was mostly made up of people looking out for themselves, with a few bullies thrown into the mix of course, he did find occasional people, like the store clerk, who seemed to possess some amount of kindness. He learned to accept the kindness when he could find it, because it never lasted long. Lucy had stopped teaching him when he moved into a foster home, Ada had found a new family, Emily had brought Jack into her home and refused to see his vices, and even the nice clerk left the store some time in the winter.

Harry met one such woman on a bitterly cold day in early December. Hoping to avoid exposing himself in the chill wind that was blowing, he had been wandering the streets in search of a warm restroom he might be able to use. He knew that few, if any, places would both have a restroom available and allow a grubby child such as himself in the door. Eventually, he came across wide stone steps from which he could hear a couple of adults begging. Thinking that a place that did not force beggars off its steps just might allow him inside, he ventured up the steps and found the front door.

The room he entered was pleasantly hushed, with only the soft sounds of rustling papers and occasional whispered voices. Although he could tell the room was rather dim compared to outside, the way that footsteps echoed gave him the impression of an expansive space with a high ceiling. He stood uncertainly a few steps inside the door, unsure of how to proceed. Even extending his tactile senses to the edge of his limit (about ten feet by this point), he found nothing but a small sign a little to his left. Was there a help desk somewhere he could ask for directions to the loo? He heard a couple of people passing in front of him, should he ask one of them? Usually, Harry just wandered around until he found what he was looking for, but while that method was acceptable outside on the streets or even inside the little grocery store he occasionally visited, he was not sure how the people of this building would take to a street urchin meandering through.

His body was just beginning to relax slightly in the pleasant warmth when he heard footsteps approaching him. For a moment, he was afraid that whoever it was would toss him back outside into the cold, but instead they crouched down to his height and a woman's voice spoke.

"Welcome to the library, young man. My name is Sophia. Can I help you with anything?"

Her voice was as cheery and welcoming as a hearthfire, and despite himself, one corner of Harry's mouth curved upward in the timid beginning of a smile.

"Yes, ma'am. I was looking for the loo, could you point me in the right direction?"

"I can, or would you rather I took you there? It's a bit complicated," she explained.

"Er…" Harry hesitated for a moment. He had grown rather unaccustomed to following someone's lead since leaving Emily's; he enjoyed his independence, and was wary of accepting help he did not absolutely need. However, something about this woman seemed trustworthy. "Sure. Can I take your elbow?" He reached out his left hand, adjusting his grip on his cane.

Her hand felt wrinkled when she grasped his, placing it on her right elbow. They walked away from the doors and the echoing room down a hallway, and she described the way as they went.

She left him by the door to the men's room, and as he pushed it open he turned around and said, "Thank you for your help. I'll be able to find my way back on my own, you don't need to wait."

"Ok," she said. Harry flinched slightly when he unexpectedly felt her hand on his shoulder. "Perhaps wash up a bit too, while you're in there. You can hardly see the boy under all that dirt."

Harry nodded mutely as he tried to gather himself, then she patted his shoulder and walked away.

Harry found himself returning to the library somewhat frequently. At first, he would use the excuse of needing the loo and leave immediately afterwards, but eventually he grew comfortable enough that he would sometimes find a place to sit and just stay for a while. He would usually sit on the ledge of one of the windows, feeling the warmth and light of the winter sun on his face without the bone-deep cold he now experienced nearly constantly.

Sophia showed him the library's small collection of Braille books, allowing him to read them one at a time and carry them over to his spot by the window. He was not able to check books out as he was not a member of the library, but somehow the book he was currently reading was always available until he finished it. Occasionally, Sophia would even bring a small snack over to him as he read, like a bag of crisps or an apple, claiming that it was a part of her lunch that she had been too full to eat. He was not sure he believed her, but he knew better than to turn down free food.

The library became his refuge through the winter, and a place he felt safe. As long as he cleaned a bit of the dirt off his face in the loo before sitting down, everyone but Sophia would ignore him. And Sophia never asked him personal questions, at least not anymore. At first, when he was still using the restroom excuse and was afraid to stay for longer than a few minutes, she asked him a few times where his parents were or whether he lived nearby. He always fled as quickly as he could, and it would take him several days to work up the courage to return. The warmth of the library always enticed him into coming back, though, and eventually Sophia stopped questioning him.

Although it was a harsh winter, he got by somehow, and he became very grateful for the heated library. He tried to keep moving through most of the cold nights, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands to keep the blood flowing, and so he slept mostly during the day. He would often curl up in the library window and try to pretend he had just dozed off while reading. He also found a few places where warm air blew through dirty grates in the sidewalk, and he would sleep there when he found them unoccupied, at least until someone else shoved him off to try to take the spot for themselves. Harry also built himself a nest of cardboard and newspaper in his alley, and he would sleep there when the library was closed and all the grates were occupied.

He got into several scuffles, with both older boys and adults, over his warm winter coat. Living on the streets for a few months had taught him to fight a bit better, using a combination of hearing and touch and his extended tactile senses (until he grew too tired), on occasion identifying the general direction of movement with his residual vision, utilizing his cane as both a tool and a weapon, and working his small stature to his advantage as much as possible. Therefore, it was a while before he finally lost his coat in a fight against two teenaged boys, his cane snapping in the process.

After the boys ran off with his coat, Harry sat shivering in his hoodie on the sidewalk, the broken cane clutched in his hands. He tried fitting it back together, hoping the elastic inside might hold it in place, but the strand had torn a bit when the plastic broke and it snapped apart, leaving him with four short pieces of plastic. Frustrated, he angrily kicked them aside, and began to take stock of his injuries. He had a split lip that would likely be swelling soon, and his ribs felt tender and sore to his touch. His right hip was throbbing, but that was likely only partially due to it being struck; his hip had been bothering him frequently in the cold, and since he spent so little time warm he was nearly always limping a bit.

Tired and sore, he made his fumbling way back to his alley, trying to keep his extra tactile senses open. He collapsed into his nest when he reached it, all of his energy spent, and slept.

The next few days were exhausting for Harry. He used his extended tactile senses as much as possible to navigate, unable to ignore his body's need for food and warmth although his injuries were screaming at him to rest. But keeping his extended sense open for longer than about forty-five minutes a day was impossible, and trying to push this limit only increased the strain and fatigue he felt. He tried searching for a stick, but it was impossible to find one long and sturdy enough in the middle of London. Once, he found a long piece of rusted drainpipe, but it was too heavy for him to swing properly and rang loudly against the ground, which felt too much like announcing to the world his predicament.

He stumbled into the library a couple of days after losing his cane, limping towards a window and collapsing onto the wide ledge. It took him seconds to fall deeply asleep, and he woke to Sophia's voice and a touch on his shoulder. He flinched violently away, then relaxed when he remembered where he was.

"It's nearly closing," Sophia told him, concern in her voice. "Where's your cane?"

"Lost it," Harry mumbled, shuffling away towards the door. He struck his right hip against a chair and had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. He stood for a moment trying to massage the pain down, then hurried on when he heard Sophia approaching him from behind, escaping out the door before she could ask him any more questions.

He did not return to the library for a couple of days, wary of Sophia's questions, but its warmth and a safe place to sleep eventually became too much to ignore. When he came inside, he heard Sophia call him, but he moved toward the window in an attempt to ignore her. Concentrating too hard on the sound of Sophia approaching him, he nearly knocked into the person who was sitting in his usual window seat. Embarrassed, he mumbled an apology and proceeded to the next one. He was intercepted, however, by Sophia.

"Harry, there you are," she said brightly. "I wanted to give you this."

Within him, a strong need to escape and to maintain his pride warred with his desire for whatever it was that Sophia had for him. Eventually, the need to escape was overcome, and he hesitantly stretched out one hand. He felt something hard and rubbery push against his palm and he grasped at it, exploring it with his left hand.

It was a cane, folded up with the handle loop wrapped around it. Trying to contain his growing hope for fear of disappointment, he slowly felt the tip and then extended its length, tapping it against the ground to ensure all the pieces had snapped into place. It was nearly identical to his old cane, the only difference being that it was slightly longer; he supposed he must have grown a bit at some point, for it actually probably fit him better.

"One of our patrons left it here a while ago," Sophia was explaining. "We have a limit on how long we'll keep things in the lost-and-found before we get rid of them. So you can keep it."

A bit dazed, Harry nodded, one corner of his mouth involuntarily curving upward. He had been so tired… He used his new cane to find the window he had been heading towards and curled up in it, the folded cane held tightly to his chest as he slept.

Later, he realized that it was unlikely Sophia had actually found the cane in the lost-and-found. It fit too perfectly, felt too new, and he could not imagine anyone who would need such a cane leaving it behind. Nevertheless, he never said anything of his suspicions to Sophia because he knew he needed the cane. He might not have lasted much longer without it; the fatigue had been settling into his bones and made the cold feel inescapable. He was left with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude towards the kindly matron at the library, one he hoped that someday he might be able to express.

xxXxx

Severus Snape sat in an armchair by the fire in his quarters, a bottle of firewhiskey cradled in his hands as he stared into the flames.

_Failure._ The word rang in his mind. He had failed at everything. He had failed to win Lily's heart, failed to withstand the Dark Lord's manipulations as a teenager, failed to save Lily's life, failed as a spy once the Dark Lord was dead… and now he had failed at finding Harry Potter, the boy he had sworn to protect.

"Severus."

He had been searching for going on three years now, and there was still little to no sign of him. And as he failed at finding Harry Potter, he was failing as a teacher. He knew how the students referred to him, knew the only ones who defended him were some of the children in his own house (though they of course did not include the children of Death Eaters), and even they did so only out of loyalty.

"Severus!"

The call finally penetrated his thoughts, and he looked up. Dumbledore stood before him, looking down at him with some concern. It showed just how far gone he was that he had not even heard the floo.

"Yes, Headmaster?" he intoned flatly.

"We will find him, Severus," Dumbledore assured him.

"How can you be sure?" Severus moaned, uncharacteristically giving in to the inevitable conversation immediately. He rubbed his forehead with his hand. "And in what state will he be when we do find him? We have no idea where he has been these last few years. And even before that, we have no idea how the Dursleys may have treated him; abandoning him does not indicate great parenting behavior."

"I have confidence, Severus. He will be at Hogwarts in time to join his year mates for their first year this September. In the meantime, Severus, I am worried about you. You have been withdrawing further and further these past couple of years. You accept help from no one in anything. It is not healthy." Dumbledore frowned as he stated this.

"I am fine, Headmaster, I have told you before," Snape growled. "I have always been a private person."

"You have become downright reclusive, Severus. There is more to life than the mission," Dumbledore chastised him gently.

Snape shook his head and took a swig from the bottle.

"Things will be different this summer, Severus. I will not allow you to spend every waking moment, and even some moments you should be sleeping, scouring the countryside as you too often do. We will find him, the regular patrols that _you_ suggested are still maintained, but running yourself into the ground will not help you protect Harry." Dumbledore's eyes flared briefly, reflecting the light of the flickering flames.

Snape simply stared into the fire sullenly, not moving when Dumbledore sighed and threw a pinch of floo powder into its depths and left.

xxXxx

By the time spring began to melt into summer in the city of London, quite a lot had changed for Harry. The struggles of the winter had taught him how to fight much better, using everything he could find in himself or his environment to his advantage. He had eventually covered up the whiteness of his cane with dirt to make it less visible as a symbol of his blindness, deciding that although it had its advantages (particularly in begging), it made him seem too vulnerable and too much of a target. He was unsure how obvious his blindness was from the sight of his eyes, so he still wore the Chelsea cap pulled down low on his head, partly to protect him somewhat from overhanging objects his cane would not find and partly to obscure the sight of his cloudy eyes just in case. With a fair amount of trial and error, he had eventually learned to pick simple locks, allowing him to get into the dumpsters outside of the nicer establishments. He even learned how to stay alert and listen for clues to when he needed to open his extended tactile sense, allowing him to save the energy for when he truly needed it. However, by the summer, Harry was able to push his tactile senses out to thirty feet around him and he could use it for a total of two hours a day before the ability gave out.

One day, he was waking up from his nest in his alley, enjoying the feel of the morning sun on his face, when he heard faint flapping and then an odd twittering sound from somewhere behind his head, around where the bent drainpipe was. Surprised to hear what could only be a bird come so close to him, he greeted it.

"Hello, little one. Sorry, I don't have any food to share. You'd be better off going to the park."

But the bird's pleasant twitter turned into a loud screech. Startled, he jumped to his feet, opening his extended sense of touch on instinct and stretching it towards the bird. Oddly, he found what felt like a thick piece of paper attached to one of its legs.

He frowned. "Did you get yourself caught somewhere, little one - er, not-so-little one?"

But on further inspection, he realized the paper was a letter in an envelope, and it appeared to be tied to the bird's leg.

"That's an interesting way to send mail," he muttered. "Bloody impractical, training carrier pigeons; he's obviously lost." Then, turning to the bird, he slowly approached and gently asked it, "Would you like me to take that off your leg for you? Maybe I can figure out how to deliver it for you. Might get me a reward of some kind, too," he added to himself.

He reached out a hand warily, hoping the bird was as domesticated as he was supposing, and grasped the letter, gently removing it from its leg. He picked up his cane and headed towards the opening to the alley, closing his extra tactile sense as he heard the bird fly away.

Harry walked briskly towards a street corner a few blocks away that he knew Timothy could often be found at. Timothy was an older homeless man he had met a couple of months before. Harry had been sitting with his paper cup on the same street as him, trying to maintain enough distance to avoid threatening the other beggar but keep close enough to avoid raising suspicions from passers-by. Timothy had unexpectedly approached him and asked if he could sit beside him. In the middle of some mumbles, he had given Harry a proposition to regularly sit beside each other when begging and split their earnings. Ever since, Harry had often sat with Timothy, listening to his disjointed ramblings and occasionally conversing.

Unsurprisingly, Harry did hear Timothy's mutterings as he approached the intersection. Timothy seemed to have the curious characteristic of appearing at times to be completely insane, and at others wiser and more firmly rooted in reality than most others around him. At the moment, Timothy's chatter seemed mostly coherent, so Harry hoped he would be helpful.

"Timothy," Harry cut in, interrupting Timothy's train of thought to get his attention.

"Why look at y'se'f, it's Harry!" Timothy began, but Harry hurried on.

"I was wondering if you could tell me who this is addressed to, I thought I might be able to get some money for delivering it or something," Harry explained, handing over the letter.

Timothy took it, then exclaimed, "Why it's you's!"

Harry held back a sigh. "Yes, I know I found it, but I was wondering if you could help me read the name and address on the front."

"No it says you!" Timothy protested. "It even says you's home on't."

Harry furrowed his brow. "My home?" he asked, confused.

"Yes, yes, you's home, you's alley down th'street. Hee-yah, let's see wot 't says." Harry heard Timothy begin tearing the envelope.

"No, don't -" he began to protest, reaching out, but he was interrupted by Timothy reading the letter out. It was a bit difficult to make out completely from Timothy's odd pronunciation, especially since a few of the words were unfamiliar, but Harry thought it went something like this:

_*Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

_Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore_

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, _

_Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July._

_Yours sincerely,*_

"- Ach, carn't make out tha' scrawl. Hmph. Do you s'pose tha's why you's friend's still 'round, then? They've g't this whole list of stuff next…"

"What do you mean, my friend is still around?" Harry asked, a bit absentmindedly. He was contemplating the contents of the letter. It was quite far-fetched, even sounded rather crazy. Logically, he knew it was rather likely that Timothy had just made it all up. But something about it seemed to fit. He did seem to do some rather strange things at times… And there was his ability to extend his sense of touch…

"You's friend, that owl. The one wot dee-livered it. Must need a reply 'r summat," Timothy explained.

Harry paused, then decided not to question how Timothy knew the letter's method of delivery. "It's an owl?" he asked. "I guess it did seem big… And it's still here? Quick, can you help me write a reply? Is there any pen lying on the ground or something?" He waited impatiently while Timothy looked around, wishing he could trust him enough to open his extended tactile senses and search himself.

"Ach, no pens," Timothy said, "but hee-yah." He shoved a sliver of what felt like some soft rock or hard wood into Harry's hand. "This'll write f'you."

"Will you do it, please, Timothy? I'll tell you what to say, just write my exact words, ok?" Harry asked, trying to be patient.

"Nah, nah," Timothy protested, patting Harry's hand closed. "You be fine. My hands 'r big bird claws like you's friend's, they not's writing v'ry well."

Knowing not to argue, Harry nodded and reached for the letter. After asking which side was the blank side, he set the sliver to the paper, dredging up half-forgotten letters and methods from over two and a half years ago when he would sit with Ada. He checked with Timothy that the words were clear enough ("They's bi' messy, but they's there") and then hesitated for a moment, suddenly uncertain. Was this crazy? Could he trust these people? Did he even want to go to a school? What if they sent him back to Emily's, or perhaps even to the Dursley's? His grip tightened in anger and fear, but then he remembered the past winter, the one he had barely survived. How many more could he make it through? And even with all the tricks that he had learned, did he really want to spend the rest of his life on the streets? In fifty years, would he be like Timothy, a half-crazed man with a begging cup in one hand and a beer bottle in the other?

Decided, he stuffed the letter back into the envelope, then carefully scrawled "Hogworts" (guessing at the spelling) onto the back side. He asked Timothy for help tying it back onto the bird's leg, then listened to it flapping away, simultaneously hoping that his life would change and worrying what would happen if it did - and suddenly concerned that the school would send their reply by owl and he would have to go through the whole ludicrous process again.

xxXxx

"Albus! Albus!" Minerva McGonagall came hurrying into the headmaster's office, uncharacteristically discomposed.

"Yes, Minerva?" Dumbledore stood and came around to the front of his desk, curious as to what could so agitate the usually unflappable woman. "What is it?"

"I was just sorting through the first-year replies and I found this!" She held out a letter.

Dumbledore took it and examined it, frowning. "This is just one of the acceptance letters," he said.

"The other side, Albus," Minerva explained quickly, impatient.

Dumbledore flipped it over and found scribbled writing that read:

_I.m sorry I don.t know anything about Hogworts. Please explain._

Before he could ask any questions, Professor McGonagall handed him an envelope. "It came in this," she said, brimming with only partly-contained excitement.

_Mr. H. Potter_

_The Smallest Alley_

_Grove Street_

_London_

Dumbledore's head snapped up after reading this, and without saying a word he strode to the fireplace. He tossed a pinch of floo powder into the flames and called out, "Severus Snape's Quarters!"

Several minutes later, Snape was pacing the floor in front of where McGonagall and Dumbledore stood, his face impassive aside from the crease in his brow and focused intently on the ground.

"How could we not have considered this before?" McGonagall queried breathlessly.

"We had discounted all magical methods from the very beginning as they are too easily traceable by the Ministry," Snape snapped in reply. "I have not even _thought_ beyond Muggle methods for the past year and a half. _Foolish_," he hissed to himself under his breath. "It is fortunate we even received a reply."

"Indeed," Dumbledore stated. "Our best course of action is to retrieve him here immediately. From the address, it appears he has been living on the streets in London, likely alone. Hopefully it will not be too difficult to convince him to come. Severus, I trust you are up for the job? You should leave as soon as possible."

At this, Snape stopped pacing and looked up. "Me, Headmaster? Surely-"

"There is no one better, Severus," Dumbledore interrupted him, not unkindly. "I trust you completely, you will be quick and discreet, and I believe you have as good a chance as anyone of gaining Harry's trust."

Snape swallowed and nodded, knowing better than to voice his disagreements. Once decided, the old man was not easily persuaded. "I will leave at once," he said, and swept from the room.

xxXxx

A couple of days after sending the response back, Harry was crouching on a crate in his alley, idly contemplating whether a trip to the library would be worthwhile. He had been so distracted since the morning the owl had come, dangerously so at times. He was not sure how long post by this method would take, or even how trustworthy an owl was with mail, and so he could not decide whether to hold out hope or give it up as some absurd fantasy he had allowed himself to fall prey to.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone entering his alley. Suddenly on alert, he opened his extended touch, relaxing his body so he could be ready to move at any moment without giving the appearance of shifting at all.

"Harry… Harry Potter?" His head snapped up at hearing his name. Surprise and fear whirled within him, though his face remained the impassive mask he had grown accustomed to wearing over the past two and a half years. His thoughts turned to the letter he had sent, and, steeling himself and gathering confidence like a cloak around him, he hopped off his crate and stepped forward. He brushed the hair out of his eyes and switched his cane to his left hand, stretching his hand forward with more assurance than he felt.

"I'm Harry Potter," he stated, his voice held steady by sheer force of will.

He heard and felt the man step forward, then pause for so brief a moment Harry might not have noticed if he had not been attuned so completely to his surroundings. Before he could process the possible meanings of this, the man's hand grasped his in a firm shake.

"Hello, Mr. Potter," the man said, his voice deep and smooth. "I am Professor Snape. I am here to take you to Hogwarts."

Relief filled Harry, even as a new kind of fear began to build up inside him. But he squashed it down, for now, knowing he had already decided his course of action. He would take this opportunity, and face whatever problems it may bring when they arose.

A/N: Section surrounded by asterisks (*) is taken from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone. No copyright infringement intended.

Please, please, please review! I love hearing what you think!


	6. Chapter 6: Hogwarts

THIS CHAPTER HAS BEEN REVISED

A/N: All right guys, here's the next chapter! It's a bit rough, in my opinion, but I felt bad for taking so long to update, so I decided to just post what I have. I may change a few things, smooth things out a bit, over the next few days. Hope you don't mind!

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns the Harry Potter universe, books, characters, etc. Not me.

ch.6: Hogwarts

Harry's feet slammed into the ground once the portkey released him, and he pitched forward, dizzy and disoriented. His arms flailed, trying to find something to hold, and he might have tumbled to the ground had he not felt Snape's strong hand grasp his elbow, steadying him until he found his footing.

Snape released him once it was clear he was no longer in danger of falling over, and then swept up the hill, calling, "Come."

Harry scurried after him, opening his extended touch and trailing what felt almost like a 'hand' on Snape's back so that he would not lose him. He stumbled a few times on the uneven ground trying to keep up with Snape's brisk pace, but he knew better than to complain.

Snape felt rather uncomfortable as he led the way up the hill towards the castle. Should he be helping the boy more? He did not really know how to interact with a blind person, and especially not a child who was blind. Blind wizards were very rare, though they did exist, and he had never had cause to interact with a blind muggle. He hoped the child would have the sense to say something if he needed help and hurried on, anxious to be within the heavily-protected castle as quickly as possible.

They went straight to the hospital wing, and Snape instructed Harry to take a seat on one of the beds. He watched Harry find one with his cane, then left as he saw Madam Pomfrey bustling over, giving her a nod as he turned.

Snape entered the headmaster's office a couple of minutes later, letting the door slam shut behind him as he began to pace the floor in front of the headmaster's desk.

"Blind, Headmaster! Potter is blind!" he exclaimed, seeming a bit at a loss.

"Yes, Severus, we did receive your Patronus. It is unexpected," Dumbledore said placatingly.

"Unexpected!" Snape ranted. "In the time we lost him, I lost him, Potter was blinded, he lived on the streets, Merlin knows what else he faced…"

"Calm down, Severus. You cannot be everywhere or do everything. We are all human and fallible. The important thing is that he has been found and he is safe now." Dumbledore calmly watched Snape pacing, radiating power and serenity.

"Safe," Snape spat. "How does a blind wizard defend himself? He will be even more of a target-"

"Being blind is not the end of the world, Severus," Dumbledore admonished him. "You do not know how it happened, or whether you would have been able to prevent it anyway, and he seems to have adapted quite well since. He must be getting along fine if he was able to survive on the streets for any length of time."

Snape growled, "But we might have been able to save his sight if we had found him sooner. At this point… It is highly unlikely even magical medicine will be able to fully restore his sight, if it can help him regain any vision at all."

"Severus, Harry will be fine. Blind wizards are rare, but they do exist, and they get by just as well as their muggle counterparts," Dumbledore soothed the man before him. "Now, the only way to know for certain exactly what Harry has been through in the past three years is to ask him, and to see what Poppy's diagnostic scans reveal. Let us head to the hospital wing. We will inform Minerva on the way, but I do not want to overwhelm the boy with too many people at once."

xxXxx

Harry was nervous at first when Professor Snape left him - the man was gruff, but at least he sort of knew him. But the kindly matron soon set him at ease, plumping the pillows behind him and telling him to sit back. She asked if she could take his cane for him and told him exactly where she placed it on the nightstand. Harry relaxed minutely, and closed his extended touch, deciding to conserve his energy in case he needed to escape later.

"Now," the nurse began, "I am going to perform a quick diagnostic scan on you, just to find any immediate issues. Just sit there and relax, it won't take but a moment."

Harry tried not to fidget, questions burning inside him even as he tried to tamp down the fear that was still smoldering at the back of his mind. Snape had given only a cursory explanation of magic on their way over, and there was still quite a lot Harry did not understand. He heard a scratching sound as Madam Pomfrey waved her wand over him; it sounded similar to a pencil writing on paper, but was a bit harsher.

The scan took no more than half a minute, and afterwards Madam Pomfrey told him he could sit forward again.

"You seem relatively healthy, no pressing issues. A few scrapes and bruises of course, I can give you a salve for those a bit later." She seemed to say this first part almost to herself, then her voice grew louder as she asked, "Are you hungry, Mr. Potter? I need to set up for another test, but it will take a bit of time and I thought you might like some food in the meantime," she asked him kindly.

Harry nodded shortly, pleased to be receiving food so soon after his arrival. He heard the matron move briskly towards the other end of the wing. When she returned a couple of minutes later, a delicious aroma wafted towards him, causing his mouth to water.

"Here you are, Mr. Potter, I'll just set this up over your legs on your lap. There's soup in a bowl in the center and a piece of bread on the right-hand side. Here's a glass of water, I'll let you set it on the nightstand yourself so you can find it later." With that, she began bustling around him, presumable preparing for the next test.

Harry ate slowly and carefully, savoring each bite and wary of keeping his stomach settled. Food had been scarce the last few days, and he knew from experience that if he ate too much or too quickly it would just come back up. As it was, he only managed to finish about half of the meal. Loathe as he was to leave food uneaten, he knew his protesting stomach would take no more.

"Finished?" Madam Pomfrey leaned over him as he set his spoon down. "That's all right, there's no prize for cleaning the plate. I'll be back in just a moment." She took the tray, presumably to be washed, and returned a minute later.

"Alright, this scan will take a bit longer. I'll just need you to lie down, all the way, there you go, and lie still. I'll let you know when you can sit back up," She commanded him.

Harry complied somewhat nervously, worried about what the procedure would show and about being so exposed and in such a vulnerable position in front of a stranger, even one as kind as Madam Pomfrey. He clenched his teeth, reminding himself that he had made his decision and he was not leaving this newfound world unless they tried to send him back to Emily and Jack, or the Dursleys, or to someone equally as horrible.

The nurse began waving her wand over him once again, and he heard the odd scratching sound resume. But this time, the scan lasted long minutes. Harry's nervousness steadily increased as time drew on, reaching a point where he was considering just bolting from the room when the scratching finally stopped and Madam Pomfrey took a step back.

"You can sit up now, dear," she informed him pleasantly, and Harry obeyed. He was curious about what the scan would have shown, and what she would now know, but was wary of asking.

"Would you like to wash up a bit dear, now that we've gotten that out of the way? There's a full bathroom off the wing I can show you to."

Harry nodded gratefully. He was a bit afraid she would want to help him and he did not want to expose himself in front of her, but he had not had a full shower or bath in eight long months. The offer of cleaning himself thoroughly was too good to pass up; he would simply have to find a way out of it if she insisted on staying. He hopped off the bed, grabbing his cane, and took the matron's proffered elbow, pleasantly surprised at how easily she performed a sighted lead with him.

Once in the bathroom, she showed him where the shampoo, soap, and comb were, setting his hand on each. She told him she would leave a towel on the toilet next to the shower, and fresh clothes on the hook behind the door. She turned the shower on for him and then left, shutting the door behind her.

Harry enjoyed the shower immensely, luxuriating in scrubbing the layers of grime away and the feeling of the warm water pouring over him. He wanted to stay in the shower until the water grew cold, but he had no idea what kind of rules this place had and was unwilling to risk it. When he finished, he stepped out and dried himself off, then began attacking his snarled hair with the comb. When he finally had freed the locks of all tangles, he was surprised at how long it was; his fringe now reached all the way down to his upper lip, the hair on the side of his head was at the level of his chin, and the hair in back was practically shoulder-length. He thought to himself that he would have to see if there was some way he could get a haircut, impatiently brushing the annoying strands out from his eyes.

Harry pulled the clothes that Madam Pomfrey had left him off the hook and began dressing. He had no trouble with the soft, cottony, pyjama-like trousers she had provided, but the top mystified him at first. Eventually, he realized the long, smock-like garment was probably a hospital gown or something similar, with an open back and a few ties. Unwilling to leave his back exposed, he put it on so the opening was in front and held it closed with his left hand. He retrieved his cane from where he had left it by the door and gave it a thorough scrubbing in the sink. Then he ventured back out into the wing.

xxXxx

Snape and Dumbledore entered the hospital wing just as Madam Pomfrey emerged from the bathroom where she had left Harry. Eyes lighting on them, the matron motioned for them to follow her to the office. She closed the door behind the three of them, situating herself so she could see out through the windows to see when Harry finished his shower.

"Yes, Poppy?" Dumbledore prompted her. "Did you perform the scan on young Harry?"

"Yes, Headmaster," Madam Pomfrey replied. "He's just taking a shower now. The poor boy was covered in dirt."

"Well, what did it show?" Snape bit out impatiently.

Madam Pomfrey gave him a stern look, but pulled out two rolled up parchments and handed them over. "The initial scan did not reveal too much, a few scrapes and bruises, along with malnutrition that will need to be treated. The deeper scan revealed much more, of course. And while it is not as bad as we might have feared, it is also not as good as we might have hoped."

Snape frowned as his eyes scanned the longer parchment, not looking up, but Dumbledore glanced at the matron and gave her an encouraging nod, the shorter parchment open before him.

Madam Pomfrey asked for the long parchment back from Snape, drew a breath and began, "The malnutrition has been chronic, and it has stunted his growth. If we keep him on a healthy diet moving forward and get him up to a healthy weight, he should be able to eventually achieve a height a bit closer to average, but he will likely always be on the short side, and he will certainly not attain the full height he would have.

"He has scarring on his retinas and corneas from damage that did not properly heal. It may be possible, though difficult, to reduce some of the scarring which could help with his vision somewhat. However, he has also had damage to his occipital lobe, which would have been nearly impossible to mitigate even if he had been found right away. The only way to have prevented such damage would have been to take him immediately after the accident to magical healers and they had been able to manage the swelling and spreading necrosis. Unfortunately, the magical world does not understand the brain much better than the muggle one.

"He has some faint scarring on his face around the eyes, although it is barely noticeable, particularly with his hair that long, also scarring on his right forearm from burns, and scarring on his right hip from burns and a deep laceration. There is also scarring in the soft tissue of the hip area, particularly the iliotibial band. It looks bad enough to possibly give him a limp, though I did not observe one, and the damage will likely only be partially reversible at this point. He has multiple scars from multiple lacerations to his back and upper arms, and he has previously suffered a couple of cracked ribs as well. Other than that, there are numerous bruises and contusions, he fractured one of his hands a couple of years ago, and of course his lightning scar."

Snape cleared his throat. "How much of that would you guess is from the accident?"

"Based on the timing of the healing of each," Madam Pomfrey scanned the parchment for a moment, "I would guess the main things not from the accident are the scars on his back, the cracked ribs and fractured hand, and the malnutrition. The malnutrition has been going on for quite some time, since before the accident, and the lacerations to his back and injuries to his ribs and hand likely occurred after."

Snape glared at Dumbledore as he asked the matron, "And what would you guess the scarring on his back is from?"

"I have not actually seen them myself, so it's a bit difficult to tell," she answered. "But whatever the cause, the child has clearly been through quite a lot. And he hasn't said a word to me yet, either."

Dumbledore interrupted Snape before he could ask his next question, his eyes kind if a bit worried as he stated, "You are likely quite right, Poppy. However, we could stand around all day speculating, and logistics need to be discussed." Snape's glare softened marginally. "I will need to make a few discreet trips to the Ministry and to the Dursleys to get his guardianship taken care of as soon as possible. It is rather fortunate that the Dursleys still have legal custody of Harry in our world, as I do not anticipate that it will be difficult to convince them to sign the documents."

"Are you planning on taking custody over yourself, Albus?" Madam Pomfrey asked.

Dumbledore inclined his head. "Yes. It seems the simplest solution. I believe I will have stronger legal and political footing than many other options if it comes to fighting against powerful families such as the Malfoys, and it would not seem unreasonable to the general public that Harry would be brought up by his muggle relatives but have his guardianship changed once he enters school.

"Taking care of those details will take me a few days, perhaps a week, so in the meantime, Severus would you watch Harry? He should probably start getting used to my quarters, so you will have to move up there temporarily. I will be around on occasion, but I do not want to leave him alone during his first week in a strange world."

"But… Surely someone else… I do not know how to deal with the boy, how to interact, surely there is someone better?" Snape questioned.

"He is already somewhat familiar with you, Severus, and you should be able to spare the time. I am sure you will figure out how to interact with him. Just communicate - ask him what he needs and what he does not need. I am sure you will do fine together."

Just then, Madam Pomfrey spotted Harry making his way back out into the hospital wing, and she motioned to the two men.

xxXxx

As Harry found his bed again, he heard three sets of footsteps approaching from one of the ends of the hospital wing. He stood by the end of the bed to meet them, his feet planted solidly and his cane gripped loosely in his hands, ready for anything without giving the appearance of wariness. He debated for a moment over re-opening his extended touch, unsure of whether he should preserve his energy, but his anxiety over the new situation eventually won out. He felt the familiar forms of Madam Pomfrey and Professor Snape approaching, led by a tall man with long hair and a long beard.

As they came within a few feet of him, Madam Pomfrey spoke from the group, saying, "Harry, this is Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts."

Harry held out his right hand towards the man in the center when they came to a stop in front of him. "It's nice to meet you, sir," he stated, his voice firm but emotionless.

The hand that engulfed his was old, but surprisingly strong, and a merry voice said from somewhere high above him, "It is a pleasure to meet you as well, Harry. We were very glad to hear from you; we have been worried about you for quite some time."

Harry frowned inwardly at this, although his expression remained blank. How had they known to worry? Had they known when he left Emily's place? How separate were the magical authorities from the normal ones? And if they had been worried about him, they could not have known where he was, which led to the question of how their owl had found him - something he had not really considered earlier. His speeding thoughts were cut off as the Headmaster spoke again.

"Harry, would you care to sit please? We have some things the four of us need to discuss."

Harry complied without a word, perching carefully on the edge of his bed. He had to consciously hide his amazement when the Headmaster swished a thin stick in his hand and three chairs appeared, which the three adults sat in, albeit somewhat stiffly in Professor Snape's case.

"I know you likely have many questions, Harry, which you will be able to ask in just a little while. However, I think a few basics should probably be covered first; it may be overwhelming but I believe a brief overview would be helpful. Is it safe to guess that your relatives told you nothing about magic?" the man asked, his tone kind.

Harry shook his head a bit jerkily, thinking of Aunt Petunia's reaction whenever the 'm' word was mentioned around the Dursley house.

Harry felt Professor Snape shift a bit in his seat, crossing his arms, but Dumbledore nodded solemnly and continued. "To begin with, your parents were both a witch and a wizard, and a part of our world, the magical world. We have kept our world mostly separate and completely secret from the nonmagical world, also referred to as the muggle world, for a few centuries now. Magic is usually passed down from parent to child, but it does sometimes appear in a child with nonmagic parents, as in the case of your mother." Harry was unsure, but thought the Headmaster may have hesitated for a moment before saying, "After your parents died, you were left with your aunt and uncle, your only remaining relatives. But you were always meant to come to Hogwarts when you turned eleven; it is where your parents were educated. Your name has been down since you were born.

"It may be wise if further details about the magical world are explained later; there is quite a lot to learn. But for now, do you have any questions?" The Headmaster's voice was gentle.

Harry shook his head mutely, his lips pressed into a thin line. His mind was swirling with questions about magic - how it worked, how much it could do… If his parents had been magical, he wondered how they had died in a car accident. But perhaps magical transportation and medical treatment was not so very different from 'muggle.' But he did not ask any of his questions - how could he know what was safe to ask yet? He did not know these people, and very few adults in his life had ever truly encouraged questions.

The Headmaster nodded and continued, "Given the circumstances we found you in, it seems prudent to find you a new living situation, and as soon as possible. If you are amenable, I believe it will be simplest if I take over your guardianship, at least temporarily. I have a lot of influence within the Ministry of Magic, so I should be able to do so fairly quickly and smoothly. You will be able to live here until school starts, and begin to get acquainted with the school and with the magical world. Does that sound agreeable?" Dumbledore asked.

Although Harry kept his face carefully blank as he nodded his head slightly, his fear was beginning to edge a bit into anger. Did he not have any real say in the matter? Oh, he knew the Headmaster had phrased it as though he had a choice, but how could he truly say no when no other option had been given? And what was this about having 'influence within the Ministry of Magic'?" Would the authorities not be willing to give custody to the man otherwise, was there something wrong with him? His nervousness notched up a level, but he contained his desire to immediately run. He could practically feel what seemed like power radiating from Headmaster Dumbledore, and to a slightly lesser extent from Professor Snape; he did not think he would make it far running at the moment. So he would stick to his original plan to wait and bide his time, feeling out the situation before deciding whether to escape. Besides, he was used to adults trying to control him, even if he did hate it. He could handle it for now. As he stiffened his resolve, he turned his attention back to the Headmaster.

"Good," Dumbledore was saying rather cheerily. "I will be rather busy for the next few days then, making the arrangements, but Professor Snape will take you up to my quarters later on and help you get settled in while I am gone. And you may certainly ask him, or myself or Madam Pomfrey, any questions you may have at any point."

Harry's anger deepened just slightly at being shuffled around like unwanted luggage, but he only nodded his head, keeping his thoughts to himself.

"Now," Dumbledore's tone grew slightly more serious, "I believe Madam Pomfrey wished to discuss some treatment plans with us." He turned towards the matron expectantly.

Harry's heartbeat picked up slightly. Treatment plans? For what? He wasn't sick or injured! Sure he had a few scrapes, but that was normal. And the nurse had said she would just give him a salve. So what were they treating? Was this some trap, some way of getting him further under their control, get him to let his guard down? He cursed himself mentally. He had heard of kidnappers who took children to use them and exploit them, particularly street children who had no one to report them missing. The story had seemed too elaborate for such a thing - Dumbledore had even appeared to conjure chairs! (although they would not have known he could sense them of course) - and it had seemed to fit too well with the weird things he was able to do. But perhaps he had just wanted to be special. How foolish of him to trust them! He began thinking of escape routes, running through possibilities in his mind, and growing increasingly frightened as he despaired at his chances of success.

His wariness and increased breathing tempo did not go unnoticed by the three adults. Madam Pomfrey shared a glance with Dumbledore, and Snape's frown deepened.

Madam Pomfrey spoke up, hoping to reassure Harry. "Child, there's nothing to be worried about. We simply noticed you have some old injuries and conditions that were never fully tended to. Your hip for example, it still pains you at times, correct?"

Harry hesitated before nodding slightly. It was not a good sign that they had picked up on his wariness. But it was true that his hip still bothered him occasionally, usually in the morning and at night if he had overworked it, and certainly in the cold. But how could they know that?

The matron nodded encouragingly. "You also are rather small and underweight for your age; you would be healthier and overall feel better and likely have more energy if we could get your weight up a bit."

At this Harry frowned, almost imperceptibly. He had been living on the streets for a while, were they implying he had done a bad job of caring for himself?

The matron smiled slightly. "I think the main things, for now, are to start you on a nutrition potion that will give you some extra calories while we get your appetite up to a normal range - not to worry, dear, it's not your fault," she explained at the faint frown on Harry's face. "And then I also have a cream we can apply that will help with scarring; it may help your hip at least a bit. We can also apply it to your back if you'd like," she added kindly, but when she saw Harry stiffen she hurried to add, "Or you may just apply it yourself to your hip, that's fine as well."

How do they know about my back, about what Jack did? Harry wondered, nervous and a bit ashamed. How can they know so much about me?

The matron looked down for a moment at something in her lap, glanced at Dumbledore and then said, "I believe those were the main items of concern that showed up on the scan. Are there any other things that bother you, Harry, or do you have any questions?" Her voice seemed so kind.

Harry shook his head in response. The scan? That much stuff showed up on that scan? Harry thought. How much more do they know about me? He still felt wary, but at least he had some explanation.

She smiled at him. "All right, Harry, you can just sit back then for a little while. We'll get you taken care of."

Harry scooted a bit farther onto the bed but was too tense still to sit back. He closed off his extended touch and heard the three adults stand and walk back down to the end of the wing, and tried to relax a bit while he waited. He suddenly realized just how exhausted he was from the long day, and was hoping it would not be too long until he was taken to where he would be staying. Perhaps he could find some privacy so that he could let his guard down a bit, or even possibly a place where he could feel safe napping for a short while.

xxXxx

A few hours later, he was following Snape's quiet footsteps down the corridors of Hogwarts, trailing just behind with his grubby backpack hoisted over one shoulder and his cane sweeping the floor in front of him. He contemplated the overwhelming amount of changes and new information that had been thrown at him, and marveled a bit at the soft fabric of the new jeans and T-shirt that had been given to him.

Snape was once again uncomfortable leading Harry through the halls of the school to the Headmaster's quarters. How did he seem to always get landed with these unwanted jobs? Sure, he had worked hard to protect the boy, and planned to continue doing so, but he had hoped to do so from the shadows. He was not a kind man or a man truly suited to work with children - his students could attest to that. He glanced back at the small, scruffy-haired boy trailing just behind him, reassuring himself that it would just be a few days, a week perhaps.

He paused in front of the stone gargoyle, muttering "Mars Bars" to it, and watched it spring aside. Harry followed him past it and seemed to do well enough navigating the moving staircase, although Snape had been a bit worried that the top where the revolving stairs met the stone of the next floor would cause him problems.

Stepping off of the staircase, Harry got the impression that the room was rather larger, with a high ceiling. It reminded him a bit of the feeling he got in the library in London, although it was not as quiet. The room was full of strange little noises, almost sounding like a tinker's workshop with all of the puffing, whirring, and soft pting sounds. But Harry's skin crawled as he heard a swell of whispering rise up around him, as though the room was full of people, although he did not hear the rustles of movement or feel the sense of fullness in the air that would usually accompany such a crowd. He tried re-opening his extended touch, but he was exhausted and could not force his range to extend beyond a five-foot radius. He stiffened for a moment, then shifted his feet a bit farther apart, centering his weight and bending his knees a bit in readiness as he tried to loosen his muscles.

While he was considering where the voices could be coming from, and whether he had actually just stepped into a room full of people, he nearly startled when Snape snapped out, "Mr. Potter, they are just wizard portraits. All of the former headmasters of Hogwarts, in fact, though they are still the worst gossips in the castle. But aside from feeding the rumor mill they cannot harm you."

Harry's face flushed just slightly and he straightened up a bit, feeling mildly foolish. "Portraits, sir?" he queried tentatively, wary of being rebuffed. "They talk?"

"Yes. Unlike their muggle counterparts, wizard photographs and portraits usually can move around, even leaving their frames, and portraits generally speak, taking on the personality of their subject to a limited extent."

"Can a muggle photograph be made to do that?"

"No," Snape answered, a bit curtly. "It is done upon creation."

Harry nodded slightly and closed his extended touch, then Snape said, "Come. I will show you to the Headmaster's quarters. These are his offices, but straight ahead is a door that leads to his rooms."

Snape eventually led him to a guest room he told him would become his room, and Harry was left there to settle in. He was exhausted though, and could not muster up enough energy to explore the room fully. He simply found the bed, dropped his backpack at its end, and dragged a blanket over to a corner of the room. There, he curled up with his back to the wall, and fell asleep, completely wrung out from all of the excitement and anxiety of the day.

A/N: Thank you for all of the very kind reviews so far! It has been so very encouraging to hear what you all think! Seriously, you have no idea (unless you are a writer on this site too), so please consider reviewing!


	7. Chapter 7: Bartley O'Grady

disclaimer: JK Rowling owns the Harry Potter books, characters, world, etc. Not me.

A/N: Thank you for all of the wonderful reviews so far! Keep it up guys, you encourage me to keep writing!

Also, just to let you all know, life has gotten a bit more crazy lately, so updates will slow down for the foreseeable future. I'm aiming for once a month now. But I will update as often as I can.

Chapter Seven: Bartley O'Grady

Stepping off of the staircase and into Dumbledore's office, Snape watched with first confusion, then some alarm, and finally growing amusement as Harry stiffened and then began slowly settling into what resembled a fighter's crouch. He glanced about at the many portraits of previous Hogwarts Headmaster's, all of whom were staring at Harry and whispering to each other. He supposed it would be rather disconcerting to walk into a room you presumed to be empty only to be surrounded by whispers, and he was actually somewhat impressed by the boy's quick reaction. He shook his head and decided to intervene before the boy began striking out and ruining the priceless, though often inane, portraits.

Smirking slightly, Snape snapped, "Mr. Potter, they are just wizard portraits. All of the former headmasters of Hogwarts, in fact, though they are still the worst gossips in the castle. But aside from feeding the rumor mill they cannot harm you." He glared at the busybody portraits as he said this, but none of them seemed to even notice him.

He turned his attention back to the red-faced Potter boy and watched as he straightened out of his crouch, clearly embarrassed.

"Portraits, sir?" the boy asked, seemingly attempting to quash his embarrassment. "They talk?"

Snape sneered. Who thought it was a good idea for the Boy-Who-Lived to grow up ignorant of magic? "Yes. Unlike their muggle counterparts, wizard photographs and portraits usually can move around, even leaving their frames, and portraits generally speak, taking on the personality of their subject to a limited extent."

The boy's face took on a strange expression. Was that… hopefulness? Wistfulness? "Can a muggle photograph be made to do that?" he asked.

"No," Snape answered, wondering what had brought that look upon the child's usually stoic face. "It is done upon creation."

Potter nodded slightly, suddenly looking rather tired, and so Snape spoke again. "Come. I will show you to the Headmaster's quarters. These are his offices, but straight ahead is a door that leads to his rooms."

With that, he led him through the hallway that connected the Headmaster's office to his quarters, then down the hallway in the quarters to the guest room at the end. He periodically glanced back to ensure that the boy was having no difficulty following him, but the boy seemed to have no trouble, even if he did not always walk a straight line down the hall.

He left him at the door to his new room and headed back down the hallway to the living room. While Dumbledore had assured him that he did not mind if he took his bedroom, Snape felt too strange sleeping in the older man's bed. He seated himself on the couch and rubbed a hand down his face. The day already felt long and it was only mid-afternoon. Sighing, he called one of the Hogwarts house elves to bring him a book from his quarters, and settled in to read until dinner.

xxXxx

A couple of hours later, Snape roused from his book and glanced at the time. Seeing it was about dinner time, he started debating with himself about whether he should retrieve the boy from his room. He had just convinced himself to get up and at least knock on the door when he spotted Harry making his way slowly down the hallway, his long cane held diagonally before him and his left hand trailing along the wall. Curious, he remained seated and began to silently observe the boy.

Harry quickly found the doorknob to the bathroom and stepped inside, apparently exploring briefly before closing the door behind him. When he re-emerged a few minutes later, he continued his progress down the hall, hesitating when his hand brushed against the closed door to the master bedroom but not opening it. When he reached the open doorway to the kitchen, he turned into the room and Snape could see him running his hand over the counters and cabinets. He circled almost the entire room before reaching the doorway to the dining room, and then repeated the process in that room. Snape watched him touch each of the four chairs once, walking around the table one time before finding the wall again and tracing it to the living room.

Snape sat very still as Harry ventured into the living room, watching him first encounter the ottoman and then the arm of the couch. However, before the boy could run into his legs with his cane, Snape spoke up.

"It is nearly time for dinner. Would you care to sit at the table while I call down to the kitchens?"

He was somewhat amused when he saw the boy jump, although he also felt a flicker of guilt for concealing his presence for so long. The boy nodded mutely, then turned back towards the dining room, and Snape stood and walked to the floo.

Harry was cursing himself silently as he walked back to the table. If the continued weakness of his extended touch had not already been a sign that he was very tired, his lack of observance certainly would have tipped him off. Usually, even if he could not hear them breathing or rustling as they moved, he could still tell when someone else was in a room or near him. There was something indefinably different about a room when someone else was in it.

Harry sat down in the chair closest to the living room doorway and listened to Snape call something out, followed by a roaring sound. About a minute later, he heard his footsteps enter the room and then settle in the chair across from him. Suddenly, his nose was assaulted with the rich aroma of hot food. He frowned, a bit confused, then cautiously walked his hand forward until it found a bowl. He groped around for a spoon, finding a small piece of bread on the way, and began eating the light soup. Having already eaten more than he was accustomed to having most days, it did not take long before he felt almost uncomfortably full. He set his spoon down and waited patiently for the sounds of clinking and chewing from across the table to cease before asking if he could be excused and getting up from the table.

He resumed exploring the living room after dinner, feeling rather uncomfortable and embarrassed now that he knew Snape's eyes were on him, but even more insecure with the idea of being unfamiliar with the place at which he was staying. He had just encountered the fireplace mantle with his forehead (and was busy rubbing at the bruise that was forming and silently hoping that his baseball cap would be laundered and returned to him quickly) when he heard Snape clear his throat behind him. He turned to face the man as he began speaking.

"I need to run an errand this evening. I will not be gone too long, but I will ask Madam Pomfrey to come up until I return."

Inwardly, Harry bristled a bit at the idea of being babysat, but outwardly he only nodded silently. He decided he was tired enough to go to bed anyways, and started heading back towards his room as he heard the same roar from earlier that he was beginning to associate with some form of communication among wizards.

xxXxx

Snape apparated to an alley off of a cozy street not far outside of Ballycastle, Ireland. Adjusting his robes slightly, he swept down the street and approached a scrappy-looking house that crouched among the other dwellings as though jealously guarding something. He hoped that Bartley had not moved in the last few years as he walked up to the door and knocked smartly three times. He waited patiently as he heard the sounds of rustling from within, then quick, light footsteps approaching the door.

"Who is it?" he heard called from within, although the door had not been opened yet.

"It's Severus Snape, Bartley," he called through the door.

There was a pause, then the the door cracked open slightly. "Severus?" the man's voice inquired.

"Yes, it's me. May I come in?"

The door opened fully now, and Snape could see the form of his former mentor in the doorway, dressed in muggle jeans and a light sweater, although the darkness within the house left him mostly covered in shadow.

"Severus! Well it's been quite a few years!" Bartley exclaimed. "No, don't bother coming in, we'll just be going right back out. Give me just a mo'." He moved to the side of the doorway and Snape could see him gathering some items from a shelf next to the door. Less than a minute later, he reappeared in the doorway, adjusting a pair of dark glasses on his face and holding a long white cane in his hand. Snape moved back slightly as Bartley stepped out of the door, closing it tightly behind him.

Bartley turned as though to walk towards the sidewalk, then faced back towards Snape and asked, "I don't suppose you're wearing muggle clothes, are you?"

"No, sorry," Snape answered, glancing down at his everyday black robes.

Bartley shrugged slightly. "No matter. They see plenty of weird folk anyway." He turned back towards the sidewalk and began walking, his cane held before him and Snape following. "This way. It's just down the street. Sorry about relocating, only I haven't got much stock at the mo', and I fancy a drink for this conversation."

"I have not even told you my reason for visiting."

Bartley shrugged again. "It's been far too many years for you to just show up out of the blue to have a chat."

Snape had no response to that, and so they continued in silence until Bartley led them inside a pub called O'Reilly's. He expertly wove his way between the tables, his cane held close to his body, stopping only for a brief, whispered conversation with a passing waitress, before having a seat at one of the stools by the bar. Snape sat next to him and glanced around the room.

It was clearly a muggle bar, although there were evidently enough witches and wizards living in the area that his robes did not attract more than a couple funny looks. From the looks of the place, it was occupied mostly by regulars, but with enough newcomers that nothing was thought of an extra stranger coming in. It was also crowded enough that their conversation would not be easily overheard, but not so crowded that they would need to shout to hear each other.

The bartender greeted Bartley by name and took their orders, returning fairly quickly with their drinks. Bartley leaned his elbows against the bar as he drank, and Snape followed suit, examining his glass as he considered how to broach the subject.

But Bartley, never much of one for patience, eventually spoke up. "So what brings you all the way down here this evening, Severus?"

Snape blew out his breath, slowly and quietly. "I have a young charge who is in my care temporarily. He starts at Hogwarts this year, muggle-raised, and he is blind."

One corner of Bartley's mouth lifted in a lopsided smile. "And you thought of me?"

"I suppose."

"Well, what do you want to know, Severus?" Bartley queried, his tone containing a hint of teasing.

This time Snape sighed audibly. "Everything, Bartley. I have no idea where to even begin. I will probably be taking him to Diagon Alley myself and I have no idea…" he trailed off.

Bartley's grin widened. "Ah. A place where even the sneaky Severus Snape is unsure of his tread. Well, you would be much better off asking most of your questions of the boy's parents, or of the boy himself."

"I do not only have questions of how to act around him. I also need to know about blind wizards, specifically," Snape explained, trying to contain his exasperation. The man was deliberately ignoring his hints.

"Ah." Bartley frowned slightly. "There are not very many of us, it is true." When Snape sighed again, Bartley chuckled. "Alright, alright. I'll let you off the hook, Severus. Let's see, where to begin? Well first, how old was he when he went blind?"

"Not quite eight, I believe," Snape answered.

"Hm, that is interesting," Bartley mused thoughtfully. Snape held his tongue and was rewarded when Bartley continued. "Well, as you know, there are not that many blind witches or wizards. Most things can be healed by magic. There are occasionally people like me who get an unfortunately-placed curse, but most blind wizards are muggleborn," he gestured in Snape's direction, "or muggle raised. Every once in a while, a muggleborn wizard is born blind, and their magic recognizes this as normal and will not act to correct it. Usually by the time they enter the magical world it is irreversible. Even less frequently, a wizard is in an accident that is severe enough that their magic cannot fully protect them and cannot fully heal them. If they do not receive magical healing soon enough, this can again become irreversible. I imagine this was the case with your charge? I have never known of a wizard going blind of genetic causes later than birth, but there is not much documentation on these things so I suppose it is possible-"

"Yes, he was in an accident," Snape interrupted the man before he could travel too far down his tangent.

Bartley nodded contemplatively. "Just before he turned eight, you said? That is very interesting timing. Well, again, there is really not much documentation on these things. The Wizarding world seems to largely ignore most disabilities; it's like pulling teeth to get the Ministry to print things in Braille sometimes… Anyways. So a lot of this is speculation. But there have been a few blind wizards that have been described as having some sort of supersensory ability, slightly different for each of them. And these wizards, and witches, all went blind during the time period of their magical development, between about three or four years of age and about fifteen or sixteen years of age. I have a theory that because of the timing, their magic developed some sort of compensatory abilities. I've always wondered if those stories were actually true though." He grimaced slightly. "Wish my magic would do that. It'd be right handy sometimes."

Snape nodded slightly. "I will look out for that," he said softly, thinking of Bartley's theory and considering whether he had seen any signs of such an ability in Harry. "You said that the Ministry is difficult to work with?" he prompted after a moment.

Bartley waved a hand nonchalantly. "Eh, they aren't so bad. They just aren't very used to it. There's only a handful of blind wizards in the UK at any given time, and it's only been fairly recently that Wizarding society has started seeing us as much more than invalids. Muggles tend to be a bit more progressive that way." He swept a hand to encompass their surroundings. "It's why I end up hanging out with them so much."

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, until Bartley stood suddenly. He gulped down what remained of his drink, set the glass solidly back down on the bar, then faced Snape and grinned. "Alright, Sev, ready to learn sighted lead?"

xxXxx

Snape returned to Dumbledore's quarters a few hours later, his head full of new information and tips from Bartley. He found Madam Pomfrey lightly dozing in one of the armchairs in the living room, and roused her to return to her infirmary. Once the matron had left, he changed quickly into the pyjamas he had retrieved earlier and stretched out on the couch. Punching a pillow into shape, he cursed Albus silently as he closed his eyes, his mind still sifting through all that Bartley had told him.

A/N: Reviews please! Seriously though, please review.


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